Growing my own ginger

I came across this article and video on Facebook via a friend and thought I would give it a go. My ginger has been soaking in water for a few days and I am going to plant it today. As part of my research though I wanted to know what else I could do with ginger and came across all these uses as well as this really interesting page which went into more detail about growing ginger.

Anyway here are the uses of a ginger plant:

What part of plant	Use	Reference page
Ginger Root	Tea - just cut up a hunk of fresh ginger (no need to peel) and pour a lot of boiling water over it. Cooking - soup (fresh ginger, grated or pureed, brings wonderful zest to hot, creamy winter soups); with fish; in sir fries or in baking	Fresh Ginger Root uses
Ginger Leaves	Ginger leaves are edible but are tough to eat or digest whole but here are some uses for them. Just make sure you chop them finely before you use them. Eat them raw - too strong to eat on their own add them to flavour couscous or in salads. Dry them - add as a garnish on savoury meals. Cooking - use in cooking where the root is too much - use 2 tbsp. of freshly chopped ginger leaves in stews or soups or in stir fries. Make tea - 1 to 2g or fresh or dried leaves per cup.	Ginger Leaves
Ginger Flowers	Ginger flowers are edible too. Again though, like the leaves, the plant is very hard but cut away the hard petals and eat the bud finely chopped or blended.	Ginger Flowers
Candied Ginger Root	Any leftover root can be candied and saved for later	Candied Ginger

And here are more ideas about growing ginger as part of a permaculture garden. I am going to be growing my ginger in pots to start with so I can do research about whether it would survive outside in the UK.

August's Awesome Augementations

A bit late but that is the way it rolls in Viv's blog land!!!

A great reminder on our mortality and how we can help others with theirs whilst acknowledging our own - read here

Finnish schools are where we should be looking for how to reform our school systems.  Reckon Mr Gove won't pay attention to this either though.  Read about it here.  More interesting stuff about Finland's education system here.

Great article here about finding peace by embracing flaws and releasing judgement

Fab list of edible plants here

Busyness is laziness article here

Breast feeding just is - it's nothing special, every woman can do it and should have the right to do it wherever they want - but for some reason this is still happening which is weird when you read this.

Stephen Fry's plea to not have the Winter Olympics in Russia here and another article here

George Saunder's Advice to Graduates - well worth a read

Some great cheap recipes here

Great read here about loving your body and particularly your butt

Watercress or lamb's lettuce soup

I love this recipe but cocked up the other day and didn't realise a bag of what I thought was watercress was actually lamb's lettuce so I substituted that in instead and it was rather nice so either seems to work in this recipe (adapted from The Detox Cook recipe book.)

Serves 4

Heat 500ml vegetable stock in a pan.

Add 6-8 spring onions or an onion (sliced) to pan and simmer for 5 minutes.

Add 2 medium potatoes (peeled and sliced) and 900ml vegetable stock to the pan and simmer until the potato is cooked (20 minutes-ish.)

Add 4 bunches of watercress or a similar amount of lamb's lettuce (I used a bag) to the pan and simmer for 2 minutes

Turn off the heat and add 400ml soya or rice milk.  Stir well and leave to stand before blending the soup, reheating and eating.