This is really a magical plant. It has a very strong aroma. It smells like mango. But it is not a mango, it is a spice. Yes, I am talking about mango flavored ginger. Many of you are aware of it. But many people do not know much about this spice. It is a very special type of spice that has the aroma of both ginger as well as mango. I use it to make various dishes & drinks. It helps to bring mouthwatering mango flavor in your dish. Though it is not always easily available in many markets. So it is better to grow a lot of mango-ginger to avoid artificial mango flavor throughout the year.
This mango ginger is often used to make various pickles. I love to add such ginger in Bengali style chutney to bring mango flavor in the dish during the off season, particularly when we can not get raw mango very easily. Bengali style aam pana (prepared with raw mango) is very popular, but did you ever think that you can prepare a similar drink even in early winter? There are many other mango flavored drinks & dishes that can easily be prepared with those mango ginger throughout the year. The condition is that you should have mango ginger in your kitchen inventory.
That is why last year, I grew plenty of mango ginger in my yard garden and harvested approx 2 kg of mango-ginger. Till now I am using those spices. Even this year, I am growing a few in my yard garden as well as in containers/pots. I hope this season I will harvest more than last season.
Also read: Aamer ambol; Tasty plastic chutney; Green mango lemonade
Though many gardeners prepare different potting mix/soil for the different plants. But I can not do so because I do not want to make gardening so stressful. I always keep it simple. So I only use 25-30% compost & a handful neem cake per pot. That’s it! Nothing more than that. I use the same potting mix for every kind of plants. Sometimes I use mustard cake powder fertilizer in soil when I do not have sufficient compost fertilizer in my stock.
One month after planting, I apply liquid fertilizer (mustard cake or groundnut cake) every week. That’s all.
I used to buy various chemical/organic fungicide & insecticide. But due to lockdown, recently I started prepared my own homemade insecticide (neemastra, agniastra, dashparni ark, brahmastra etc) as well as fungicide (month old sour buttermilk).
So you can easily grow these mango ginger in your garden without even spend much money.
You can also harvest a good amount of mango flavored ginger that you can use to make a lot of mouthwatering dishes.
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