Lemongrass.

[mrs potato head]

Does anyone have any advice/experience growing lemongrass. Ours started off in propagator on windowsill, now in unheated G.house. To say the least it's looking rather sorry for itself. Where did we go wrong!.
Did today harvest lots of other beautiful herbs and my very clever husband made his first mint sauce!!!!.

Cheers for any help and happy growing.

[sewer rat]

Haven'y sown mine yet but will get round to it this week. If you don't need a lot you can grow it from supermarket bought stems. Place a cut stem in a glass of water and it will root, allowing you to plant it out knowing it will survive

[Earthbabe]

Mine looks a bit straggly too but I think it takes a while to get to a decent size to start harvesting. Give it time. I have discovered that it needs quite precise watering etc. It seems to be little and often.

[Alison]

Repotted mine (from a Feb sowing) a couple of weekends ago and it's now starting to look OK - still a long way off cropping but I'm hoping.

[Morty_007]

Mine is still thriving on the window sill (Thanks EB!) Not sure about "precise" watering though. ROFLMAO, I look at mine about once a week and think...hmm, to water or not to water...so I slosh a bit in and hten leave it for another week. It does seem to thrive on this sort of treatmet as it has a dozen or so long grass shape leaves and 2 ferny type leaves. It seems perfectly happy! As others have said, still a LONG way off cropping or even repotting I think unless the liliputians are coming for tea!


Anyone got a picture? We could compare notes...going to try and get one now

[Earthbabe]

Sorry to tell you this but it looks like you've got a bronze fennel in there as well (oops!) they seem to get everywhere. That's what the ferny leaves are. Just wriggle it out and repot or compost depending on preference. The fennel if you keep it will be fine outdoors.

[Morty_007]

Sorry to tell you this but it looks like you've got a bronze fennel in there as well (oops!) they seem to get everywhere. That's what the ferny leaves are. Just wriggle it out and repot or compost depending on preference. The fennel if you keep it will be fine outdoors.

ROFL, you give me all the best plants! So thats not lemongrass then!?! Lucky I posted a pic really. No wonder I couldn't find a similar picture of it.

Does it show that I am a COMPLETE novice?

[Flummery]

Nope, just shows you're lucky - 2 plants in one pot!

[Alison]

The lemongrass I sowed back in mid Feb is now looking really good, not exactly ready to harvest as yet but definitely looking healthy. I had thought that it was never going to amount to much but now I'm really pleased. Mind you, at this rate it could be next year before I can cook with it!

[Alison]

How are any of you doing with your lemongrass sowings? Had thought that mine was doing well but it's now stalled and doesn't seem to be thickening up at all - see below. Would be interested to know if this is typical, if I'm doing something wrong or or it's just another thing which is useless this summer!

Oh yes, and I know it's not a very good photo, I've only just worked out how to post piccies, bit too much to ask me to be good with a camera as well and it was raining at the time!

[momol]

Hi Alison,

It depend which type you have planted. The west indies one will eventually form bulb ( not like fennel bulb, but much smaller ). The north indies one will grow just like grass. I have grown the west indies one ( for 2 years now ), they generally appreciate lots of sun/ warm and fertile soil ) give them protections from cool/ cold wind ). Last year I harvested more than 0.5 kilo ( planted 10 stalks ) around september, but this year don't seems to be that lucky ( has planted 8 stalks, they remain the same number ). It is the weather, I think

Cheers,
Momol

[valmarg]

I've never had any luck growing lemon grass from seed, but what I do is buy the packs of lemon grass stalks from supermarkets (especially if they are on the reduced counter). When I get them home, I put the stalks in a jam jar of water. Regularly change the water, and they soon start to root. When they have a good root system I pot them up into a mixture of multipurpose compost and vermiculite.

valmarg