Just soak the tubers overnight then plant them in a pot with good drainage. Lay the tubers flat and put a few inches of soil over them. Use a good potting soil and mix in a little extra perlite. Put the pot in the sun or underneath a plant light until they sprout and keep them moist. If you can provide some bottom heat it if you are sprouting them indoors, it will help them sprout faster. You will have to bring the pots in for the winter if you are in zone 5a. Here's one I grew in a pot. It makes green cones with little white flowers.

Zingiber officinale aka the common grocery store ginger

Thank you for this info, I will do this tomorrow...i appreciate this so much! I was afraid it could not be done and there are a lot of rhizoms and it would take days to peel and freeze them.

Here is an older thread on people's experiences starting grocery store ginger http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1914361/grocery-store-ginger-root?n=39

That has some good info there, thank you. I like the idea of wrapping a rhizome in damp paper...I want to try that one.

I have frozen a lot of ginger, very small diced pieces, should have enough for summer all through winter lol But have planted many and doing it different ways, will let you all know how it turns out

Holy cow, that ginger plant is inspirational. I'm growing galangal from a chunk from the store, can't wait for it to finally grow flower stalks.

For starting store gingers, I did that same thing of soaking the root for a while then planting it in soil & keeping it watered. It worked!

Is there a forum on here for growing crop plants from roots, seeds etc, (ginger,taro root, pineapple etc ) as unusual plants? I'm sure there used to be.

Here's my harvest of store bought ginger yay!

https://youtu.be/_cQOADn9BLg

GreenLarry, There are forums here for Hawaii Gardening, Tropical Gardening, Tropical Fruits, and Tropicalesque Gardening. Since you're in England, try Tropicalesque gardening The others are more for warmer climates.

I was a little surprised to find the "store" ginger so easy to grow , though details are sketchy with my aging memory, but also because I read somewhere years ago that some root crops or rhizomes and tubers are treated with some chemical to keep them from sprouting before use , which sometimes can ruin the flavors or cause they to go "off" before they should, but also a little surprised to read that since you'd think certain chemicals might be dangerous for humans if present in their foods, so it would be risky to add them as preservatives I guess? None the less since we have such a short growing season, having planted it outdoors in a flower bed for summer growth it didn't get terribly tall nor did it flower , though I note one photo of "officinalis" in bloom did show some attractive blooms .

I have some store tubers that are starting to sprout (more by accident than anything), so I'm going to try planting them! We'll see what happens...

Good luck! I hope they do well for you, they are fun to grow.