Ever see a banana bloom??

[Piper]

Very cool, Cin! I've never seen it before either. Definitely not a New England crop!

Julie

[Tmai]

Neat! Banana trees die back in the winter in our area so we get no fruit. How cool to pick your own banananas!
Tmai

[clintdawley]

.39 cents a pound here. Dirt cheap Hawaiian bananas, I think.

[Molly Taco]

Usually the racoons get them first and to add insult to injury they sit on the patio chairs and eat them leaving the peels all over the place. I wich that I could get a picture of them it must look hysterical but it usually talke place in the wee hours of the morning.
Cin

[Hoa Tony Nguyen]

Cin,
I am sorry that the raccoons got your bananas! Darn those pesky critters!

My parents got a cool-toterant strain of fruit banana trees. They grow these banana plants where they live in Santa Ana here in Southern Cal. These plants are not the same as the ones that you would find at local supermarkets. This strain appears to have very good cold weather tolerance as long as there is no frost. They bloom and the fruits mature just fine. It just takes like 6 months for them to ripe! The fruits look a bit shorter and fatter than the ones we buy at supermarkets and are much more flavorful! The moment the oldest banana fruits show some yellow skin, that is right before all other critters start paying attention to it, my mom would cut the whole thing down and keep them at an enclosed space with some apples. Within a few days, they start to ripe and full of aroma! She would divvy them up and share the fruits with our relatives and neighbors. They all love it!

Cheers. Hoa.

[Sarah]

I am sorry that the raccoons got your bananas! Darn those pesky critters!

Hoa, you are being too kind.....racoons are evil. I love that your mom out-smarted the thiefs!

[Tmai]

Well, don't forget to put the peels in your staghorn fern! Raccoons are SO cute! In pictures.
Couple of years ago I was behind a motorhome that had just left a local campground. We got stuck in a traffic jam on a 3 mile bridge over the bay. Cute little raccoon had hung a ride under the motorhome and, during the stop, came out and shimmied up a light pole. SPCA showed up and tried to climb the pole. The raccoon jumped for the water 50' below! Amazingly, somebody caught the poor little scared guy in a crab net, and they took him back to the park. Happy ending, and we had a little entertainment during the jam. Ummmmmm...... guess you had to be there.

[Tanya]

Hi Cin,
Very nice bananas!

I want to offer you some tips, even though you didn't ask. I don't grow bananas but my parents did and I grew up watching and helping them caring for their banana groves. I remember my mother cutting off the old flower after its finished producing "fertile" fruits. The reason is that the flower will rob the growing fruits of nutrients, the result is you got smaller fruits. Cutting off spent flowers is a routine if you want better crops.

Maybe you can outwit the racoons as well by harvesting the bananas before they ripen. Once the bananas are matured they can be harvested even though they are still green, keep them in a warm place and they will continue to ripen. If fact, they taste better if ripened this way.

[Molly Taco]

Thanks for all of the info Tanya. I will whack off the blooms of the latest bunch, they are just finishing thier fruit production.
Cin