20 Bags of Turmeric

Yesterday when I posted the picture of the 20 bags of turmeric, I think some were wondering how much turmeric that will produce. I wish I knew! 🙂

All the small bags are turmeric. Seriously, I could get anywhere from none to a lot. I’m not going to give medical advice but if you aren’t familiar with what folks have to say about the health benefits of turmeric, please google it and read it. Vince and I do believe in it. Many years ago, a blog reader sent me a recipe for “Golden Milk” and Vince and I drink it faithfully.

Turmeric is easy to grow, though it does need a long growing season (8 – 10 months). Here, what I’ll probably have to do is bring the bags into the sun room before the first frost. It needs about 8 – 10 months to mature and I probably don’t have that long til we have frost again. I will put a tarp down in the sun room, spread a couple of old towels over it, bring the bags of turmeric in there and let them finish growing.

Suppose those 20 bags of turmeric produce a bumper crop. What will I do with it all? Good question! 🙂

1. Freeze it – I can slice it as I would use it for Golden Milk, lay it all out on cookie sheets, flash freeze it, then vacuum seal it in zipper vacuum seal bags. Then I can take out what I need, re-seal it and vacuum seal it shut again.
2. Freeze dry it – I can slice it then, freeze dry it, grind it and we can use it in the powdered form.
3. Save it for replanting – By the time it’s ready for harvest, it won’t be too long before it’s ready to plant it again. I’ll probably save out some “seeds”, depending on how much I have, leave it in a dark place for a couple of months, watching to make sure it isn’t going bad, then replant it.

I like to plant enough of anything that I don’t have to plant it every year. The last year we were in Texas, we had a bumper crop of garlic. I freeze dried some of it plain, then ran it through the Vitamix, then sifted it and ended up with about 20 good size bottles of garlic powder. I also smoked some of it, then freeze dried it and now have smoked garlic powder.

If I can get enough turmeric to last for two years, then I can use those bags for something else next year.

We have a Natural Grocer here and I can buy organic tumeric there for planting if I don’t have any of this left over when it’s time to plant.