Green Cardamom

**Climate:** Cardamom needs steady tropical rainforest conditions, with temperatures between 65 and 95°F and humidity around 75 percent; sudden shifts in these conditions and direct sunlight should be avoided. Soil should be loamy, consistently moist, and well drained, with a pH between 5.5 and 6.8.

**Growing indoors:** Outside the tropics the plant can be kept in a heated greenhouse or a warm, humid room, potted at least 10 inches deep in free-draining, sandy-loamy soil enriched with organic matter and well-rotted manure. Standing the pot on a pebble tray misted with water, along with regular misting of the leaves, helps maintain humidity, and a high-nitrogen, low-potassium houseplant fertilizer can be applied twice a month; grown this way the plant can still reach 10 feet in five to ten years but will not flower or fruit. New plants are propagated by dividing the fleshy, knobby rhizomes, and even in favorable conditions it commonly takes about two years before a plant begins fruiting.

Cardamom has no known serious disease or insect problems, but it is sensitive to its environment: temperatures below 50°F will damage the plant, and direct sunlight should be avoided as it can harm the foliage.

The fruits must be picked by hand, which makes harvesting labor-intensive. Once gathered, the green seed pods are dried, and the seeds inside are used whole or ground.

**Culinary:** Cardamom seeds are a staple flavoring in Indian and other Asian dishes, including curries and masala chai, and are used whole or ground in both sweet and savory cooking such as meats, vegetables, baked goods, and coffee. It is also used as a flavoring in Scandinavian baking and is added to tea and coffee in Middle Eastern countries, and the seed oil's antibacterial properties have been used to help preserve meats.

**Ornamental:** In climates too cool for it to flower, cardamom is grown instead as an ornamental foliage plant for its fragrant, showy leaves, while in settings where it does flower its blooms provide nectar for wildlife.

**Traditional:** Cardamom may have been used in Ayurvedic medicine as early as the 4th century BC, and has traditionally been applied for complaints such as nausea, kidney disorders, gum infections, and cataracts; seed extracts have also been used in herbal preparations intended for nervous tension and digestive upset.

**Industrial:** Oil extracted from the seed is used in aromatherapy products, cosmetics, perfume, and breath fresheners, and the seed itself has been added to tobacco.

Cardamom is native to the moist forests of southern India, in the Malabar region, as well as to Burma and Sri Lanka, and has been traded internationally as a spice for over a thousand years. India remained the world's largest producer until 1980, after which the spice's introduction to other tropical regions allowed Guatemala to take over as the leading producer, and cultivation has since spread to places such as Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Tanzania, and Central America.