Tropicalkid and Bananalover-Glad you found the pollination post helpful. I have been wanting to put it together for sometime now. I love digital cameras. If I take enough pictures 1 or 2 are bound to come out. I am realy excited about the crosses I've been able to do this year. We'll see if anything useful comes out of them.
Mike-The Goldfingers did ripen and were really good. Not as fat as the fruit I get from Going Bananas but still filled out enough for banana pudding and eating fresh. I was a little concerned when the bloom came so late in September but they did fill out pretty well. (It was the last of my plants to bloom other than a Double Mahoi that shot in late October.) I think cutting some of the hands (as hard as that was to do) and bagging them made a world of difference in how fast they matured. I did that with everything that bloomed after Labor Day and will try it again this year as I'm sure some of mine will not shoot before then. I am also exploring banana bloom recipes for those really late bloomers. Does anyone have any suggestions?
I meant to mention in my earlier post about the CA Gold I got from you last year. Thanks for parting with it. It has just over 6 feet of beautiful pseudostem and leaves. The trunk on it is huge. It has not bloomed yet but I am guessing it is not far from it. I planted it in a place that does not get full sun all day but it is a place where I can build a temporary heated structure around it come November if necessary. (It's right beside one of the greenhouses.) That way I can carry it through the winter with fruit if necessary. It has also produced 5 really nice pups this year and I will be trying some different things with them this winter coming up.
I have 2 "permanent" greenhouses. One is 14x22 with an 8 foot ceiling and the other is 16x20 with a 9.5 foot ceiling. I keep the minimum temp in these at 63-65 degrees during the winter. I am building a temporary cooler greenhouse house for this winter around some of the bananas I have in the ground. It will be ~20x40 and I will try to keep it at a minimum of ~50 degrees. I am going to test the idea of keeping the pups alive in the ground (still attached to the corm) but not vigorously growing over the winter. Growing them through the winter in the greenhouse in large containers (using the hydroponic fertilizer you recommended, Thanks for the tip) works well but I want to explore leaving the pup attached to the corm so it does not spend so much energy in the spring growing a new root system when it is planted in the ground.
If I was just strating out building greenhouses, I would build one large one instead of several smaller ones. There is so much equipment you have to duplicate when you have more than one house (exhaust fans, circulation fans, electical wiring, etc.).
My wife has asked several times how much would it cost to just cover the whole backyard with polyethylene and heat it in the winter. I think she is kidding but I am thinking about it.
