JAPANESE ginger (Zingiber mioga), sometimes called myoga, is a plant that’s not often grown in this country, but it deserves to be much more popular.

It’s a delicious herb or vegetable, and also very decorative. It’s hardy during our winters, requires little maintenance, is rarely troubled by pests or diseases, and, being originally a woodland species, will grow happily in partial shade. If you haven’t got a garden, myoga will do well in a large tub.

It’s native to parts of China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan but it’s the Japanese who make most use of it as a food. Apparently, packets of fresh myoga are a common sight in Japanese supermarkets, where it’s also sold pickled.

If you search online for Japanese ginger plant, you’ll find several nurseries selling young plants, including, these days, one or two mainstream seed companies. I bought mine from Pennard Plants (pennardplants.com; tel: (01749) 860-039). You should expect to pay between about £7.50 and £10.

Mid-March to mid-April is a good time to plant myoga — or, if you know someone who’s already got one, to take a root division to start a new plant.

The method I use for propagating myoga is crude but effective: I feel around in the soil or compost to find a clump of rhizomes that is off to one side of the main body, and then saw it off with a serrated knife for immediate replanting.

If you’ve bought a division from a nursery, it will probably still be dormant and invisible when it arrives. In that case, I prefer to leave it somewhere under cover, like a greenhouse or a cool windowsill, in the small pot of compost that it came in, until it starts showing green shoots.

No particular care is required with planting myoga — just plonk the division into the soil or pot, at roughly the same depth at which it was growing before, firm it in a bit with your hands and water thoroughly to settle the soil around the roots.

Myoga thrives in a rich, moist soil, with lots of compost or other organic matter dug in. The shoots from which the leaves form appear in mid-to-late spring, and will rapidly grow to about three feet tall. They remain a lovely, vibrant green all summer.

Once the foliage is growing strongly, it’s a good idea to mulch the plant with organic material such as compost. Keep myoga well-watered through the summer.

In Japan the blanched spring shoots are eaten, but it’s the flower heads that start appearing at ground level in late summer that are the best part of Japanese ginger.

To harvest, cut them just below ground before they open, when they’re about three inches tall. They can be sliced into stir fries, curries and soups or eaten raw. They’re crunchy and juicy, with a slightly gingery flavour.

When the foliage dies back in autumn, mulch myoga again with leaves or compost and it’ll return the following spring.