Growing Ginger...with RENEWABLE ENERGY?!?

 

Ginger is a tropical plant. It really needs ten solid months of growing time and warm temperatures to get good yields. In Newfoundland, growing ginger would be a challenge. We're up for the challenge! Realizing that ginger, garlic, turmeric and many herbs have good commercial value, I started researching how to grow ginger. Our climate is the exact opposite of the hot humid climate in which ginger thrives. Our days in summer are long and warm and our winter greenhouse is the perfect environment for it to thrive once its off to a good start. Temperatures in the greenhouse remain quite warm until late October. This all equates to needing to start ginger around the beginning of the new year in order to get a good ten months of growing time. In January, the greenhouse temperatures at night hover around 1-2 C which is too low for ginger. The idea came to me one day about 2-3 months ago. Create a small insulated greenhouse inside of the winter greenhouse and provide a small isolated source of heat using seedling heat mats. At the same time the guys from WaterLily reached out and we decided to work together on this fun project! So the plan is simple. Store energy from a WaterLily turbine in a battery bank, house the ginger in a mini insulated greenhouse inside the winter greenhouse. The batteries will provide root zone heating and a supplemental light will extend the daylight hours until after the end of february! Check out the waterlily here: https://www.waterlilyturbine.com/ FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/flatrockhomestead/ CHECK OUT OUR INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/fr_homestead/ FOLLOW US ON TWITTER: https://twitter.com/fr_homestead