Ginger - trying to grow

I love Ginger, I use it in many different things. Cooking, Ginger Ale, Lotions and such.

Ginger is described here in Wikipedia. This goes into full depth of its description and uses.

My main goal is to sustain ginger, to grow it. I tried last winter but it didn't work for me. I have read about a couple of different ways to grow it and I am going to try one of them here.

January 17th, 2014

This is my just purchased rhizome along with a piece I have been working off of for the last few weeks. I chose a clean shallow dish and added cooled boiled water (to remove chlorine from the tap water) and I let about a third of the ginger rhizome stay above the water. The rhizome I picked was nice and plump and already had a few buds sticking out.

Now we wait.... I will check it every week and take a picture of its progress.

Please add any ideas of knowledge you have about sustaining ginger... this is an experiment for me.
Thanks, Kirsten

This was a bad idea.... the ginger got slimy and I threw it away.

So here we are a year later and I have another ginger rhizome with budding heads. Here is the new project:
                                                                                 

 Its as simple as it looks... a pot of dirt... I put the ginger bulb in the dirt and covered it

Added some food....

 and water....

Hopefully it will be a happy plant....

Time will tell...

Here is the first spike, it's been about 12 weeks since I planted the ginger bulb. I will add more as I think about it.