This banana flower first appeared on Thanksgiving Day (US) in 2006
A week later, several bananas had already developed.
In two week’s time, the bananas were pointing skyward, and I was sure we’d be eating bananas by Christmas.
In the third week, we began supporting the tree with a board. Later, because the wind kept blowing the board down, we wrapped a rope around the tree and tied it to another tree in the woods.
Then the plant seemed to go into a trance for a month and little external change was seen, except the flower kept unfurling bracts and dropping them to the ground, so the stalk grew longer.
Finally, on Lincoln’s Birthday, 81 days after the flower appeared, a touch of yellow appeared in the bananas.
The procedure here is to harvest the bananas while they’re green and hang them in a shaded area to ripen. Then you cut down the plant because it will produce no more fruit and its young are already growing. So the deed was done – one blow of the machete for the stalk –
and one blow of the machete for the plant.
(More details at Flckr.)
Now to wait for the ripening!
My Gardening in the Tropics book says that in Malaysia, they allow the main plant and two ‘pups’ to grow so that they get 3 harvests per year from each clump. As the latest one to produce is cut down, a new one is allowed to grow. It also says that the oldest one is chopped up and used as a mulch for the clump.
It doesn’t seem to be done that way in backyard gardens in Honduras. I was wondering what the custom is in Panama?
I haven’t heard anyone mention 3 harvests per year, but I do see the “babies” (as they call them here in Panama) growing right alongside the “parent” plant. We’ve certainly made that decision – to leave the young plants in place. It turns out that, after we cut down the parent plant, we have 3 young ones growing alongside the old stalk. The oldest baby is already pretty tall. The youngest (this being the dry season) is pretty scraggly.
It took about 18 months for the first plant to produce. I think it is conceivable that we will get 2 more harvests this year from that first plant. I hope so!
Thanks for your comment.