Growing Curcuma Indoors
Hi everyone, I want to share some more information with you about our curcuma crop (also called Siam tulip or ornamental tumeric). We're starting to see our first flowers. These will get much taller and they have a strong vase life of about 5-10 days.
Tuberous Roots:
When you receive your curcuma roots, they will look like small dahlia tubers with a primary tuber with an eye or eyes and multiple “dangling” storage roots. They’re weird looking. Sometimes, those extra roots break off or fall off in transport. That is OK. As long as you have the primary tuber you can get your curcuma started.
They take a little while to warm up to wake up. If you're down South, you’ll probably have really good luck working with these in the field. They are native to southeast Asia, India, northern Australia and New Guinea. Curcuma are hardy in USDA zones 8 to 11. They like consistently moist, but well-draining soil. Our curcuma come from Thailand. So, our first step was to determine whether or not we have a growing space that would be good for them.
Growing Curcuma in Northern Climates:
Our winter growing space, originally developed for tulip forcing and extending our lily season, was more or less empty in the summer time. It’s more humid there than in the winter, it is a consistent warm temperature, and we have the ability to control the amount of light we provide to the plants. We don't need to add any supplemental heat or cooling to grow crops down in this space, which is pretty awesome.
Plant size & Potting up:
Curcuma can grow to be about 3ft wide x 3ft tall. As a rule, we start small plants in small containers here. We have limited space and it doesn’t make sense for us to spend extra money on large plants, lots of soil, space, etc, until a plant is large enough to require those things. And curcuma take a while to take off, so it makes sense for us to grow them in smaller containers as long as we can.
This is different thinking than you’d apply if you’re doing landscape work or even planting annuals.
We’re growing our curcuma in gallon pot sizes with a half/half mix of compost and soilless mix. We know curcuma like fertile soil. Much to our surprise, our curcuma have started blooming while in their original 1-gallon containers. Which has us thinking that as long as nutrients and water are available and temperatures are appropriate, these plants can be quite happy in containers.
Like dahlias, curcuma take a little while to “wake up”. Give them bright light in a warm space and keep their soil moist. Curcuma don’t like to dry out. Our basement is about 80F with the lights on in the summer time. The humidity is 59%. You might expect it to be higher in a space where we’re watering a lot, but the number of plants and temperature help to lower the humidity, too.
When curcuma wake up. They start to form a little sprout. And then each day it gets a little bit longer. Once they're waking up, the leaves get a little bit taller, a little bit taller, and then you'll see two leaves. And then not long after you see two leaves, a flower will just start to appear between them and each day get much larger. So once they wake up, things happen pretty quickly, which is awesome. When the flower starts to form (which appears out of no where), the flowering stems grow at a rate of about 1-2 inches a day.
They make multiple flowers per plant. So these plants are still young down here. We offered eight different varieties of curcuma through Ampersand Bulb Co. this year.
Curcuma come in a range of colors from white to very soft pink, darker pink, bold magenta pink, and even a tomato red color. There are some bicolor varieties. We have some that are called ‘green chocolate’. They're green with a dark burgundy color.
Harvesting & Processing Curcuma:
To harvest curcuma, wait until the buds are plump and colored up, but still tight. Grab the stem low, close to the crown of the plant and pull straight up. There is no need to cut the plants. You can trim them later if you like. Do not store your curcuma flowers in a cooler. They are a tropical flower and they are ethylene sensitive. They prefer to be kept warm, above 55F.
Dividing & Storing Curcuma:
Like dahlias, curcuma can also be divided in their dormant season. So in the wintertime, you can lift them and you can divide them like you would dahlias, except it's even easier to divide them because they form what look like ping pong balls attached to each other, and you just snip them off. One ball off from the other.
So they're even easier to divide. If you are down south, you can leave them in the ground. You don't have to lift them and you can just grow curcuma down there as a perennial like you would ginger or tumeric. Pretty awesome.
Store them like you would dahlias, but try to keep them no colder than 50F. If you’re able to, pot your divisions up in the late winter or early spring to get them moving for the following season.
Given their ability to bloom in indoor grow spaces, it will be interesting to see how the curcuma bloom season may be extended.
Questions?
Let me know if you have any questions about curcuma. Happy to help you. We do have a number of these available still for anyone who'd like to add them to their collection even to get a jumpstart on next year, get some going.
It'd be pretty cool. All right. All so I hope you have a good day. I hope you have a good day and I will talk to you next time.