For an unusual indoor plant, try growing ginger from a piece of root. It makes an attractive plant and, if grown well, the root can swell to provide ginger for cooking and teas.

Ginger is not hardy, and roots planted outside in frost-prone areas will not survive winter. It also does not need direct sunlight, but enjoys some warmth. All of these factors make it a good plant to try indoors.

To start a plant off, buy a large, healthy piece of ginger and leave it on a sunny windowsill until it starts to sprout. It can then be planted close to the surface of a shallow pot filled with well-drained compost. Standard multi-purpose compost with lots of horticultural grit or perlite added is suitable. Given warmth and plenty of indirect light, it will soon start to produce leaves. The stems grow up to about 1m (3ft) in height and the leaves are slim and glossy dark green. They have a tropical appearance, somewhat resembling the leaves of cannas.

If plants are grown in a conservatory, they may eventually produce yellow and purple flowers, but this is rare even in full light. Keep the soil moist, but do not wet the root directly as this can lead to rotting. Harvest at any time from four months after planting. However, in autumn, the foliage will die down, and this would seem the natural time to harvest. The root should have swelled to several times its original size. If you want to harvest earlier in the year, it is possible to lift the root, cut a small piece off and replant it. The plant will keep growing, and you need only take as much as you need at any one time, and so do not need to worry about storage.

If you are digging up the whole root in autumn, place it in a sunny spot and turn several times to allow the surface to dry out. This will help it to store well. Roots can be successfully frozen and small pieces removed as they are needed.