I think the answer is "not very moist". I probably watered them once at the start and then if I watered again it was only when the container felt very light. I use transparent plastic cups so I can watch for roots developing. And when I watered them it was a light watering. My sense with warm weather, tropical type plants such as turmeric, ginger, banana, papaya, is that when they are young they are very easy to kill with water. And I speak from experience! Conversely, I have a nice clump of ginger that's at least 8 years old, and it gets grey water everyday, and rain in our S.Calif rainy season. It seems to handle any amount of water without a problem, even in relatively cold(24-28F) weather. And the first time I saw butterfly ginger it was growing in swamps at the side of the road in Brasil.

One thing about planting a small plant in a large container...the container will hold a lot of water and take a long time to dry out. So I would only water the small area where you plant the tuber, not the entire container.

This is the first year I've had any turmeric survive, so they aren't very large yet. I can say that the ones I moved outdoors and into 1 gal containers are almost twice as tall as the ones still in plastic cups and indoors. I didn't know about no direct light, I'll have to check that out.

Turmeric and ginger need a good amount of heat to grow. So try a heat pad and even then it will take another month or so to see activity. In tropics they grow all year round but they do slow down considerably in winter.

jbclem here is my butterfly ginger in zone 6b.

I plant them in ground in May and they flower around Sept/Oct. These can take quite a bit of cold once they get going. I dig out the ginger clump in Nov or so and store it in a cool place in the basement. By April they start showing signs of growth again. The ginger clump is about 1 feet by 2 ft. Each year it grows bigger and I chop it and give to neighbors and friends. It is a common and invasive plant in Hawaii. In India it is very common too. The fragrance is out of the world but ginger flowers are fragrant and showy in general.

If you purchased the roots at the grocery store, they may have been treated or irradiated to prevent sprouting. In which case, they will never grow. Look for organic, untreated roots at Whole Foods, Asian markets or even nurseries.

They are very shallow rooted plant so a soil depth of 8-10 inch is plenty. You will obviously get more with a wider than a deeper pot. They grow pretty fast with a lot of heat and light but hard to predict how much you are going to get in a pot. Start with a largish tuber and once you see them growing keep the soil consistently moist and not let it dry out. I grow them for the fun. We consume a lot of ginger and turmeric and no way I can get a good supply of them myself with a short growing season we have.

I watered these in already when I planted them.....do you think I killed them? Is it worth keeping them in the pot to see what happens? I suspect new growth will come sometime this spring, as their natural cycle comes back online.

These came from plants growing in a field, not far from where I live. they were grown on a border zone of 5b and 6a according to plantmaps.com.

Being able to grow ginger, and knowing exactly what went into the food we eat, is a huge plus for us. We use about a half pound a week in cooking and green juices as well as Kombucha.