Bananas (Musa spp.) are one of the world’s most popular fruits, with an annual production of about 105 tons, according to BananaLink. Many people incorrectly believe banana plants to be trees, despite the fact that they are actually herbaceous perennials and the largest grasses in the world. Tropical-looking banana plants can be grown successfully in moderate climates in USDA plant hardiness zones 5–11, according to the Missouri Botanical Garden.
It doesn’t take a lot of time or work to grow bananas, but there are a few things you need to do right when you begin to start.
For example, banana plants can provide a wide range of benefits.
- As windbreaks or screens, they’re fantastic!
- They can block the blazing sun from your home’s west side.
- Water and nutrients from drains are used by these creatures (think washing water or outdoor shower)
- Horses, cows, and other grazers can eat the leaves.
- It is possible to weave baskets and mats out of the trunks’ dry remains.
Banana plants are much like this:
- Soils that are rich, black, and full of life.
- Mulch and organic materials in abundance. LOTS. Keep adding to it.
- Much nitrogen and potassium (from chicken dung, of course)
- Warmth that is neither too hot nor too chilly. When it comes to temperature, bananas are a bunch of snobs.
- A constant supply of water, both in the soil and in the air.
- It’s a banana’s best friend! That’s the part that home growers miss the most.
Banana plants do not like the following things:
- Winds are fierce.
- Extreme cold or heat.
- Having a hunger or thirst pang.
- Being on your own and vulnerable.
To learn more about all of that, read on.
Varieties of Bananas
Cavendish
It’s the kind of thing you’d find in a supermarket aisle. If you reside in an area where bananas are grown, you’ll notice this kind in the fields. It’s a sturdy shrub that produces enormous, hefty bunches of fruit.
The Lady Fingers
tall and lean plants with smaller, sweeter fruit. tall and lean. Aside from the little fruit, they are often grown as ornamental plants by gardeners because of their beauty.
Plantains
are in the process of steaming bananas. More starchy and drier. In the same way that you would use potatoes, you can utilize them green.
Plantain variants account for 80% of all banana production worldwide! Many tropical countries’ diets would be incomplete without them.
Many more exotic types exist, but these are the most popular and commonly farmed.
Cavendish bananas are the focus of this website, however, the information given here is applicable to all other types of bananas.
What Is the Best Way to Grow Bananas?
It is incorrect to refer to bananas as palm trees, despite the fact that they are not trees at all. Perennial plants such as bananas can be grown year-round.
Fruits like bananas, ginger, heliconias, and bird-of-paradise flowers are related to each other.) Zingiberales is the same as Zingiberales in terms of classification.)
The leaf stalks that make up a banana’s trunk are bundled together to form the trunk. New leaves begin to sprout from within the plant. Having pushed their way through the center, they emerge from the crown’s center. Like the bloom, which develops into a banana plantation.
It takes roughly nine months for a banana plant to mature and produce a bunch of fruit. As a result of this, the mother plant eventually dies. Suckers or pups (small baby plants) grow around the base of the tree.
The corm, a large underground rhizome, lies at the root of a banana plant.
Many growth spots on the rhizome produce new suckers or pups. One or two suckers can be left in place to serve as a stand-in for the mother plant while the others are removed and relocated.
Now that you know what to do if your garden produces bananas, where do you begin?
A Beginner’s Guide to Banana Planting
To begin, confirm that bananas can be grown where you are.
- You’ll need a tropical or mild subtropical environment for this Bananas can withstand high temperatures, but they despise it. Even while they can tolerate low temperatures for a limited period of time, they despise it just as much. They stop growing below 14°C (57°F).
- As temperatures fall even further, the skin of the fruit darkens, and the leaves may turn yellow. Frost destroys the above-ground plant, but the corm can live and re-shoot if it is protected from the elements.
- Banana plants thrive in temperatures between 26°C and 30°C (78°F and 86°F).
- When it comes to banana cultivation, a lot of water is a must-have. The large, delicate leaves lose a lot of moisture, so you have to replenish them frequently. High humidity is also necessary for bananas to thrive.
- Commercial banana producers in my area use sprinklers to irrigate their plants twice or three times a day to keep the banana plantation at a constant humidity level!
- Soil with a lot of organic matter is required. Make your own decent soil if you don’t already have any. Before you plant your bananas, add a lot of compost and chicken dung. Additional potassium can be obtained from wood ash. Then, apply a heavy layer of mulch to them. Keep feeding and mulching!
- You’ll also need a lot of room to spread them out. Bananas require protection from the wind in order to grow properly. Increased humidity, temperature stability, and shade and cooling are all benefits of mass plantings of banana trees. Your goal is to avoid destroying what’s forming inside…
- Check out a commercial banana farm if you get the chance. Rows on the outside, particularly on the west side, are always gloomy. There are better bananas inside.
- Bananas should be grown in blocks or clusters rather than single rows or individual plants. If you’re short on space, group a few banana plants together and shield them from the elements by growing something else nearby. When it comes to their happiness, you must provide them with a sheltered jungle habitat.
Bananas can be grown
Seeds can’t produce normal bananas. Unlike wild bananas, these banana plants do not generate seeds that can be used to reproduce.
- The best place to begin is with the suckers or pups indicated above. Do you know a banana grower? Engage them in conversation. There are always plenty of bananas to give away because every banana plant produces many more suckers than you need.
- Only suckers from healthy banana plants should be harvested. It’s ideal that the suckers have short, spear-shaped leaves and reach a height of four feet or more. The initial banana bunch will be smaller if the suckers are smaller.
- A sharp shovel can be used to remove the suckers from the primary banana plant. Cut between the mature plant and the sucker downwards. The corm has to be trimmed away. It’s a challenge.
- It’s important to collect a substantial amount of corm and roots. Reduce evaporation by cutting off the top of the sucker while you transfer it and as it adapts to its new environment.
- The banana plant’s growing point is at the very bottom. The sucker can be decapitated. Eventually, it will regrow.
- Alternatively, you can remove some of the rhizome and chop it up. Bananas can be grown from any part of the body that has an eye. However, it takes longer to create banana suckers than it does to cultivate a tree.
- If you’re using suckers or pieces, space them two to five meters apart in your well-prepared banana patch.
- Your layout dictates how much space you need. There are several double rows of bananas in my garden. There are now two plants in each spot, suckers of the original plant, in the double rows, with a spacing of two to three meters. Rows of four to five meter apart form my double rows.
- Bananas are growing around an outdoor shower in a haphazard manner with just two-meter spacing between plants.
- It’s possible to plant banana plants even closer together if you only have a single cluster.
- Early on, avoid rotting your banana plants by keeping them damp but not soggy. Due to the lack of leaves, they do not require a large amount of water at this time.
- Keeping Your Banana Patch in Top Shape
- Bananas die most frequently when they lack water.
- Starvation is the most common reason for a child not receiving fruit.
Strong winds toss banana plants to the ground
- Keep them safe, feed and water them, and everything will be OK. Bananas, aside from that, don’t necessitate much attention.
- Every now and again, simply rake up any dead leaves and trim back any dead plants.
- Removing all suckers but the best one results in larger fruit.
- Two strong, vigorous plants can be left after the original planting. It’s best to keep just one sucker per plant, but that’s not all. If you don’t, your patch will be overrun.
It’s the small, spear-shaped leaves of the suckers that are most effective, not the larger, spherical ones.
Why? Suckers that are still being nourished by the mother plant don’t have to generate large leaves since they don’t need to do as much photosynthesis as they would otherwise.
And a well-cared-for sucker will yield better fruit and be more resilient than an uncared-for sucker.
A well-established plantation is essentially self-cleaning. The leaves and rotting wood should be placed back under the plants. For additional mulch, you might cultivate other plants in the understory. Cassava, sweet potato, and crotalaria are the ingredients I utilize.
When you remove bananas from the system, you only need to add some fertilizer to replenish the nutrients that were removed. As bananas are heavy in potassium, so should be the fertilizer used to grow them. Bananas don’t have deep roots, this fertilizer should be applied close to the trunk.
Keeping Bananas in the Ground
Depending on the conditions, you may see your first flower in about six months. Make sure to keep the leaves surrounding it, especially that one shielding the top bend of the stalk from the sunburn!
It is revealed beneath each purple flower petal that there is a “hand” of bananas. “Fingers” refers to the bananas as a whole.
It’s possible to get anything from four to as many as a dozen or more hands full. To follow that, under the next petal, you’ll find a small fist full of bananas that aren’t even ripe yet. Those are the digits of the male species.
Men’s fingernails simply dehydrate and fall off. All that’s left is the stalk. Allowing it to develop will result in it finally touching the earth.
About 15 centimeters below the last female hand, some individuals cut the “bell” (a clump of purple flower petals) off. As a result, the banana plant devotes all of its resources to producing large bananas, rather than a long stem. Some of the bottom female hands are also removed by commercial banana producers in order to increase the size of the remaining bananas.
After that, it’s a matter of waiting for another two months at the very least.
Banana plants that are weak or not straight may require props to support their hefty bunches, which are prone to snapping or pulling the entire plant over.
A long stick with a u-shaped hook at the end would make an excellent prop. However, a long enough board or pole can also be used. That’s up to you to figure out.
Bananas Ready to Pickup
They are suitable for picking when they are well rounded and the small blossoms at the end are dried enough that they may be easily peeled off. No matter how large or small they are, you can harvest them now while they are still green and they will begin to ripen immediately.
Those bananas are the tastiest when they’ve been left to mature on the bunch. However, once they begin to ripen, they do so much faster than you can consume or use them, making it difficult to keep up. Cutting off the top hands sooner and allowing them to ripen on a kitchen bench will save you time and effort.
If you want to keep out possums, birds, or other intruders, you can also cut the entire bunch and hang it someplace. Bananas won’t ripen evenly if that happens. Prepare accordingly.
Peeled and frozen bananas can be used in cooking and baking. Peel, cut in half lengthwise, and store in an airtight container for later consumption.
The rest of the plant will swiftly die when the bunch is harvested. Put on some chook poo, and let the next one grow as you go through everything else.
Bananas are protected against illness, insects, sunburn, and marauders by commercial banana growers who utilize bunch covers (plastic bags open on both ends that are slipped over the bunch and tied at the top). The bags can be purchased at a rural supply store, or you can ask the grower for some.
When I worked on banana fields for four years, I became accustomed to bagging my bananas. However, I no longer do so. Because even if some of it is eaten by birds, there is still more than enough for everyone else to eat (including the hens), as well as for freezing and drying… So why not share the bounty with the local wildlife, such as birds and kangaroos?
