Hello from Dupin, my online alter ego:
Dupin is an avatar I've used for years in mainly religious forums since I am an Independent Christian however, that's not the purpose here. I suffer from a lifelong chronic inherited disease and among other things am very limited as to the fruits I can eat. Simply put, my reaction to citrus fruit can hospitalize me so I have to avoid anything which has anything from them in my food. My system revolts if I try to eat most other fruits and rejects them violently. Bananas, and tomatoes, if you are among those who count te last as a fruit instead of a vegetable, are the only fruits I can eat raw. I can eat cooked apples and pears, dried apples and I haven't tried pears yet and things get iffy with cooked peaches though I know I can tolerate the juice from canned peaches when used to help sweeten tea. It helps that I love bananas or life could get a bit duller.
Since I'm disabled and Bananas are so high in price I don't get to eat many anymore and since I've started gardening to help supplement my diet I've decided to grow bananas in containers. Note, I wrote "start growing" there will be no trying to grow them because however long it takes I'm going to stick with it. That is the attitude I started my little garden with as well.
My constraints are that I will have to grow in containers and the variety must be capable of surviving zone 9 conditions along with the polar vortices we've been struck with the last few years running and which look to continue. I cannot bring plants inside and don't have a greenhouse. I learned about an edible banana variety which fits the need a year ago but lost the information on it when my hard drive stopped working. So I was searching for it, though I don't remember the name of the variety when I found this forum and discovered there may be more than one variety which may work. So I decided to join the forum since it looks like it is a good place to make a few friends among knowledgeable banana enthusiasts who don't mind advising a newbie growing the fruit.
I do have blogs on both my disease since I am a bit of an advocate about it and gardening for the disabled. The second is one I started last year. However, I'm not here to promote them and will only give them out on request or if I can put one of them in the profile since some forums do have a space for such. I also know the conditions I laid out for my growing efforts won't be easy, but they are what I have to work with.
I also have a friend who lives off of the grid in Texas northeast of Dallas who didn't think it was possible to grow banana trees in the Clarkesville area where he lives and is interested in finding out what would work as well. Since he does not have the internet I'll either have to funnel the information through me or hook him up with somebody in the area who might be able to advise him. He has the land to plant his trees in unlike myself.
Dupin
