Growing exotic ingredients at home

[Jenni]

[Moderator's Note" This topic contains posts split off from the "Growing Ginger" topic, branching out into other exotic ingredients to grow at home]

I live in the UK, where the weather is not exactly good, and find that ginger is very easy to grow. We also grow turmeric and galangal, as well as tamarind, olives, banana and pineapples. The tamarind and banana are large plants now, but we grow them for pleasure, not for fruit. We have had olives though, and two pineapple off the pineapple plants that were rather delicious. Also, we grow tonnes of chillies, but everyone seems to do that these days.

Next project is a curry leaf plant, as we buy so many that it would be really useful to have a plant in the house that we could use. Probably not instead of buying, as it may not do well enough to produce many leaves. Also tulsi, as the plant we grow last year did not last very long.

[Darienne]

What on earth did we do before Google? Tulsi was a new one for me. Very interesting.

My ginger is indoors. Are all your plants either indoors or out? Or both? How wonderful to pick your own fruits.

I have started a few Calamansi/Kalamondin/etc plants but I suspect that I shall be a very old lady before they can bear any fruit.

This fall I am going to plant my first indoor herb garden. You are never too old...

[andiesenji]

If you haven't yet discovered the following site: http://www.gardenguides.com/how-to/tipstechniques/containerindoor/

Devoted to indoor gardening with specific attention to herbs, it is excellent.

[Jenni]

What on earth did we do before Google? Tulsi was a new one for me. Very interesting.

My ginger is indoors. Are all your plants either indoors or out? Or both? How wonderful to pick your own fruits.

I have started a few Calamansi/Kalamondin/etc plants but I suspect that I shall be a very old lady before they can bear any fruit.

This fall I am going to plant my first indoor herb garden. You are never too old...

We are lucky enough to have a conservatory, so the ginger, turmeric, etc. are all in there. I would love to hear more about you calamansi. Did you get seeds from a fruit you ate, or did you buy seeds or young plants from a gardening store. Our tamarind tree was grown from seeds we got from fresh fruits, and the pineapples were grown by cutting the tops off supermarket pineapples and putting them in some soil! We also had an avocado plant grown from a stone in an avocado. We found that supermarket ones don't seem to work, but we buy lots of avocados from a Caribbean grocer near us, and they seem to work fine.

[Darienne]

We are lucky enough to have a conservatory, so the ginger, turmeric, etc. are all in there. I would love to hear more about you calamansi. Did you get seeds from a fruit you ate, or did you buy seeds or young plants from a gardening store. Our tamarind tree was grown from seeds we got from fresh fruits, and the pineapples were grown by cutting the tops off supermarket pineapples and putting them in some soil! We also had an avocado plant grown from a stone in an avocado. We found that supermarket ones don't seem to work, but we buy lots of avocados from a Caribbean grocer near us, and they seem to work fine.

I would love to have a conservatory. How lovely!

My little seedlings come from my friend's 2 Calamansi trees, indoor in the winter, which have now borne a few crops. Marmalade. Yummm... Many of the harvested oranges had little seeds inside them which were already beginning to sprout, so she used them to plant. This was in May and the seedlings are now 5" at the tallest leaf.