Hi, this is my dwarf golden bananas today, I trimmed some of the leaf off to get more sun onto them, when the flower drops to about 2ft below the fruit we will cut it off so the fruit will get the benefit from the plant not the flower.Then in about 1mth it will be bagged with a special bag which lets the sun in but not the bats, rats, birds or'neighbours', and in about 3mths we will have our own bananas for brekkie! Dwarf gold ducasse bananas ( photo / image / picture from chocolate's Garden )
It looks as though you're going to have a bumper crop there Chocolate. How I wish I could grow things like bananas here in Scotland.
This is fascinating, I have never known anyone with their own banana tree. Our bananas grow in aisle 21 of the grocery store and they don't have a bat problem. At least not one that I am aware of. Fruit bats? That is an awful lot of bananas for breakfast. Do they ripen all at once? Will we get a picture with the bag covering the fruit? Jerry
My stars! You'd better plan on having neighbors come for breakfast with all those bananas! That flower is fascinating. I'd never thought of it before, but are bananas really just seed pods?
That's neat. I remember we had a banana tree when I was a kid. Made little bananas... and they were sweet! We transplanted a banana tree from one of my aunts. It suffered alot during last summer's drought, but it's coming back strong. Sure would be nice to get at least one banana from it! I can't wait to see how you bag your's up.
that's very neat. how interesting that they need to be covered. that is a lot of bananas. I hope you enjoy them! thanks for sharing.
Thanks everyone, Marlingardener...the bananas which we buy in the shops have been bred over the years with only small almost unoticeable seeds which are sterile. The ornamental bananas which dont produce edible fruit have very large black seeds which is one of the reasons the fruit is inedible.They are grown for the spectacular flower, I have 2 at the moment just seedlings, they die after they flower but will be interesting exercise and unusual[seeds very hard to get] Cherylad...we grow those small bananas here too, they are called sugar bananas or lady finger, but they are only small and sometimes too sweet.Not available in shops very often...not really popular. I will post some photos of previous years.. every year we have picked the whole bunch and yes they do ripen very quickly off the tree and all at once, so this year we are going to experiment and just pick 1 hand[10=20] bananas at a time, and see if it will keep the fruit fresh for longer. Gold 2010 ( photo / image / picture from chocolate's Garden ) Red 2010 ( photo / image / picture from chocolate's Garden ) Lucky we like bananas! ( photo / image / picture from chocolate's Garden ) Supermarket bananas are picked green and then gassed....no comparison with 'real' bananas in taste.
Forgot to show some have stripes. Red with stripes... pink flesh ( photo / image / picture from chocolate's Garden )
I heard a talk show on banana varieties and the taste differences. They ones we get are the only shippable ones there are. The rest all taste incredible different and delicious. Makes me want to try them and I don't even really like bananas. Chocolate, yours looks awesome. Thanks for sharing with us. It is so cool to see things from places we have never been or may never get to. I love this place.
'I don't even really like bananas.' WHO said that? Say sorry and then maybe a mouthwash would be good...it is compulsory to like bananas!
Chocolate, I will confess... I said it. The only banana I will eat must be yellow with a green stem and a touch of starch to it yet, after that, it is too ripe, I don't like the texture. no brown spots on it at all. Yours must taste better than what we can get here. these are shipped a million miles and ripened off the tree......Kind of like the tomatoes in the winter...So fresh off the tree must be better than anything we ever get to taste, huh?
Chocolate, The guy down the road who can grow anything, has a banana tree. He actually got bananas last year! His tree is next to a metal building, so gets lots of heat, and he watered it faithfully. When the bananas ripened, he had a banana party--invited the neighbors, picked a banana for each of us, and we stood around and had the first, fresh banana of our lives. No comparison to the grocery ones (which I don't enjoy as much now, knowing what they should taste like.) Someone (jokingly) said he should make banana pudding out of them. I don't think that neighbor will be invited to this year's banana party!
Chuckle--nice story, MG. Chocolate, I really am enjoying this thread. I am a banana lover and whether its looking at them or eating them--I just plain like the subject. When travelling in Indonesia and Malaysia, I was in heaven with the enormous choices of bananas that they had there. All sizes and colours. When I see the pics I imagine that I have a banana flavour in my mouth. Great thread! Of course in those countries one of the "pests" that the farmers have to watch out for are the large fruit bats which can come in their hundreds and would decimate crops in a few evenings. I sometimes placed a small piece of banana on a tree or bush outside my pension window or balcony at night and sit and wait. At least one fruit bat would always find it. They were quite interesting to watch.
Wow...that is a lot of bananas...we wouldn't be running to Walmart for bananas for quite a while if we had those.
