Grow Turmeric Plant Indoors in a Pot – Step by Step Pictures

Last Updated on March 23, 2021 by Babita

Can you grow turmeric plant indoors? The answer is absolutely yes. It is actually very easy to do. The only thing to remember is it will take months for the turmeric plant to mature. With the right amount of care and nurturing, you can have a robust, mature and fully grown turmeric plant.

This above picture is of the plant I grew about 1 1/2 years back. I had planted the rhizomes in October in a huge pot. Since it was getting cold, I had placed the pot inside. The plant steadily grew and survived. The following Spring when the weather changed I placed the pot outside. Once I placed it outside, it flourished because of the hot and humid weather. So overall it took me about 7-8 months to get this fully grown Turmeric plant.

Turmeric is a tropical plant and loves moist and humid climate.

So growing it indoors is difficult, but not impossible. In this post, I will show you my step-by-step process and progress of growing turmeric plant indoors. Please be patient as this will take several weeks and months to achieve a proper fully grown turmeric plant.

Check the steps to grow turmeric plant indoors. It is not complicated. These first few steps are the easiest to follow.

I planted these yesterday. To keep track of the time I am going to add the date April 24th, 2018

Step 1:

I filled up small pots with organic potting soil halfway. I like to use organic potting soil for any vegetables or plants my family consumes.

I used the yellow turmeric. You can use either yellow or white turmeric. I bought these turmeric rhizomes (roots) from our local Indian store. I personally wanted to use yellow turmeric and that is what you see below. Make sure each of these rhizomes (roots) have buds on them. Those buds are going to sprout and that is why you need every rhizome or pieces of turmeric to have them. You can either plant them whole or cut them into pieces (they need to have the buds) and plant those.

Step 2:

I placed one rhizome (root) in one pot.

Step 3:

Next, I filled all the pots up with the potting soil.

Step 4:

I added a little bit of water in each of these pots.

Step 5:

Finally, I placed all the pots near a sunny and warm area next to my heater vent. It is still cold outside, so I am going to leave it inside until I see some sprout.

Now we have to wait and see. Once the sprouts appear, I will transfer them into a huge pot. If the weather is good outside, I may even transfer it. It takes about 8 to 12 months to get a fully grown turmeric plant. So check back in a couple of weeks to see the progress.

So what Happened to my Turmeric Plant

Unfortunately, because of my own fault the above mentioned rhizomes did not survive.

What did I do wrong

I forgot how long the turmeric rhizomes take to sprout and stopped watering the pots. That was my big mistake. I should have been more patient.

So I tried again and this time I did not give up!

November 20th, 2020

I planted these new turmeric rhizomes in a big pot. I followed the same steps as listed above. Instead of planting them individually in separate pots I planted them all in one big pot.

Since the weather had already started to change (in New Jersey), I kept the pot inside close the heater vent near my kitchen patio. That area gets good sunshine and the warmth from the vent helps too. I was also watering every other day.

Update: February 20th 2021

Success! You can see a the rhizomes started to sprout. I can see two sprouts. Right now the tallest one is about 4″ and the second one is about 1″. It took these turmeric rhizomes almost 3 months to sprout.

I am keeping my fingers crossed. Please keep checking back and I will update this post with new pictures. Thank you all for being patient.

Update: March 23, 2021

I am so excited to update today. As you can see my turmeric plant now has leaves and more are on the way. If you notice at the bottom another one of the turmeric rhizomes has sprouted. So it is safe to conclude that 4 out of 5 rhizomes have sprouted so far. It is still cold outside, so I am keeping the turmeric plant indoors for now.