Hey all! I'm a long time lurker, but never posts due to never enough time due to kids and job. But I finally decided to share a few photos and story of my banana garden. I started growing bananas last summer time. I'm not too sure why I have never grown them before since we eat tons of bananas and we love the tropical look of them at our house and farm. We grow avocados, mangoes, citrus, 30+ different fig varieties, low chill peaches-pluots-apriums-plums-nectarines, and pomegranates. We are enjoying growing bananas.
We are currently growing Blue Java, Dwarf Brazilian, Patupi, Mysore, Gros Michel, Mona Lisa, Sweetheart, Grand Nain, Pisang Raja, Dwarf Namwa, Ice Cream, Gold Finger, and soon to be Raja Puri and improved Mysore Pisang Ceylon. Looking for Tigua and maybe another one or two to finish off. Whatever we do not like to eat, will be canned.
My sister currently lives in Cambodia and teaches there, but is heading home for good in June. She travels a lot to the neighboring countries of Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam. She loves bananas and eats hundreds of them. She always raves about a certain banana she absolutely loves from a certain farmer/seller(she was the one who actually got me into growing bananas). She says it's strawberry ice cream and sweet. According to her, this banana is the most popular of all the farmer stands that sell bananas. The farmer's family has been growing it for half a century according to him. The banana is Pisang Keling. Now I know it's supposed to be just a Mysore, but according to my sister and this farmer its different than an ordinary American Mysore, whatever that means. LOL! The farmer says it's in the same family but different-special. My sister says the same thing. She states she has tried many Mysore, which she likes as well, but this Pisang Keling is somehow different. So, since she is leaving in June and she teaches the farmer's children English(they have become close), the farmer gave her a bulb/corm of this Pisang Keling to take back with her to plant and grow her own here in Texas. The farmer packaged up the corm with coconut husk and bagged it. My sister sent it to me via mail. It took over a month and a half to get to me here in Texas. I potted it up and it's starting to pop out. I'm excited to try it. Photos below of it being sent and popping out.
Thanks for joining me on this lil adventure.
