Hey thanks for reminding me to pot up some ginger. Apparently it takes a looonng time before the rhizome starts spreading, but I hear freshly picked ginger is quite a different thing from old, hardened store-bought ginger.

I've also heard that store-bought lemongrass is easy to grow (I think I saw that on a Martha Stewart show).

Some things I have grown from grocery store items, using seeds or pits (unless otherwise noted) from fresh produce:

avocado
sweet potato (from the tuber suspended in water)
prickly pear
pineapple (from the sliced off top in potting soil)
persimmon
beans (from dried beans)
peppers
citrus
ginger (from the root buried in potting soil)
date (unsuccessfully)

Jim

Jim, dates are tough. My friend and I actually did get them to germinate, but it took almost 4 weeks, and they need to be in complete darkness. We sowed them in styrofoam cups, and covered them w. paper plates, well out of the way of direct sunlight. Every once in a while, we'd water them. After about a month, they came up