Ginger · Shanghai, Shanghai, China
When to plant ginger in Shanghai
Main outdoor window
16 Mar - 13 Apr
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
2 March
In Shanghai, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
1 Oct - 31 Dec
If you plant at the start of the window.
The average last frost. Half of all years are later than this.
Step by step in Shanghai
Each window is a range, not a single day. Earlier in the range buys you a longer season; later in it buys you a safer one.
Start indoors
5 Jan - 2 Feb
Eight weeks before your last frost, under cover or on a windowsill.
Plant rhizomes
16 Mar - 13 Apr
Two weeks after your last frost.
Harvest
1 Oct - 31 Dec
Ginger through the year
Against the frost risk in Shanghai
Why these dates
Sprout the rhizome indoors eight weeks before the last frost and move outside two weeks after it. Young stem ginger can be lifted at six months; mature ginger needs the full season.
Killed at 0C and dormant below 15C. Harvest when the leaves yellow, which in a temperate climate means before the first frost rather than at true maturity.
Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Ginger are timed from 8 weeks before that frost for an indoor start, with planting out 2 weeks after it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Shanghai.
The median frost-free season here is 287 days, against 240 to 300 days to maturity for this crop counted from sowing. That margin is what decides whether a late sowing is worth attempting.
Also in Shanghai
Other vegetables to time
Growing ginger in Shanghai
When should I plant ginger in Shanghai?
Aim for 16 Mar - 13 Apr in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 28 Mar - 25 Apr - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will ginger be ready to harvest in Shanghai?
Expect to start picking around 1 Oct - 31 Dec, based on 240 to 300 days to maturity from the planting date calculated for this location.
How much frost will ginger tolerate?
Killed at 0C and dormant below 15C. Harvest when the leaves yellow, which in a temperate climate means before the first frost rather than at true maturity.