Thanks from me also Cindy. My bit of ginger is now about 14" tall. Kind of silly looking. Does it ever flower? And how long do you think it takes to develop a rhizome large enough to cut off a bit. Would you just dig it up, cut what you wanted and replant? Seems like that would seriously set the plant back.

I've never had my ginger flower but maybe in a longer growing season (than mine), it might - just have no idea. If you have only a small piece - maybe 1" - 2" - you may want to think about planting some more. I probably ended up with10 to 12 pieces (approx 1" - 1 1/2") so I have a little more harvesting flexibility. Yes, I can dig up a piece, take what I need and then replant if the piece is larger than I need. When I make my carrot ginger dressing, it requires at least 2 tbls per batch. I do have one large piece that I haven't touched in a couple of years and I'll be breaking that up into smaller sections to plant.

Crumbs! I thought I'd divide on big chunk of ginger right in the center of the pot (I generally harvest from the outer edges) to get ready for the growing season. It was a good 5" to 6" long and I had to chop it up to get it out of there. Definitely worth the cost of an inexpensive pot, some soil and one organic root.

wow! Now I'm excited about getting mine going and harvesting it at some point.

I may order organic ginger online rather than trying to grow the stuff from the store. As I mentioned I have never had one sprout before. Usually they just dry out if I don't use them fast enough. I keep them in an open ceramic 'basket' on the counter next to the garlic jar.

For store bought (not home-grown), I used to pop pieces of ginger root into the freezer. You can prep them ahead of time - peeling, slicing - and put them in a freezer bag to use anytime. The texture does change a bit but not badly. Easy to slip a slice into tea or julienne/dice for cooking. Due to the water content, I wouldn't freeze indefinitely (which I have done) as it can turn into semi-mush when thawed.

Today when I was out tending to my plants, I noticed that there's a sprout now coming up from one of the pieces that I had planted some time ago. I had given up on it and figured the rhizome had just rotted like some of the others. I'm so excited!

Congrats on the new "baby". Conditions must have been right for it to sprout.
I did cut off all of the old growth from last year when I divided mine yesterday. But I did have a new sprout just before I brought the big pot outdoors last week.