The frugal gardener is in action again. After previous success with spinach and mint, I am going to share my successful experiment with lemongrass.
Step 1: Purchase a bunch of lemongrass
If you are choosing lemongrass for cooking, you want to choose the firm and thick ones and avoid the ones that look overly dry. But if your plan is to become a frugal gardener, you want to choose the bunch of lemongrass that has the most number of stalks packed. If you have the good fortune to be able to purchase the lemongrass separately, choose the thin one too, since they cost the least amount of money. Yes, they will perhaps only save you a few cents, but why choose to pay more?
Step 2: Prepare the lemongrass
If your lemongrass has top part that looks overly dry, trim it off and remove any dead browning parts on the lemongrass to reveal fresh green/white bulb.
Step 3: Soak the lemongrass in a container of water for a week, or rather till the roots appear
Self-explanatory. Soak the lemongrass in a container till their roots appear. Remember to change the water daily so as to prevent the mosquitoes from breeding.The rate of root growth varies from plant to plant, but since lemongrass is quite hardy, even if there is just small specks of white roots appearing, they are ready to be stuck into the soil. You want to plant the lemongrass deep enough into the soil so that they are not wobbling about.
Actually, since lemongrass is native to humid and tropical climate and they belong to the family of grass, they can take abuse quite well. If you plant them on the ground, you can plant them and forget about them only to happily stumbled onto a bunch of wild growing grass a few months later. Just remember to water them if the weather gets too dry.
Happy planting. Common use of lemongrass includes curry, lemongrass tea, insecticide and for flavouring rice.
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