Kalabrian

Greetings to all

I am new to the forum. I live in Calabria, which is the land at the southern toe of Italy in the middle of Mediterranean. Basically my land is the last piece of continental Italy before the island of Sicily to the West and Africa to the South.

Italy is a country which extends in lenght from north to south, experiencing much different climates depending on latitude, altitude, proximity to the sea and to which sea. My area is the one just at one drop from the African shores. Thus, the climate in my area is not at all what one would expect as an average European climate. Instead it is very similar to the climate of Sicily itself, which means that it is in turn similar to areas like California, Greece, Malta and certain areas of North Africa.

As has been already said by other members from Sicily, we have here a peculiar variety of banana, which is referred to by the name of Sicily common Musa. This plant is accustomed to grow and bear fruit in the region, for it was brought here at least 1000 years ago by Arabs. But some oral traditions connect it to the times of ancient Greece. In general this bears testimony to the antiquity of the diffusion of the Musa in the area. It is believed by some Italian experts that this variety of Musa should be considered very close to the Orinoco, and thus, I would add, to California Gold, also given that as I said our climate can be much similar to that of California at least in certain areas.

I am new in the field of cultivating bananas, so at the moment I only have small plants which are not yet in the age to bear fruit. But I will try to add photos of plants taken in my area.

While as I said there is no problem to grow this Musa here on the coast, one could experience some problems while the altitude increases. In fact, while the coast is basically a frost-free area, on the hills it is possible to experience some light frost for around 15 nights every year. This adds some troubles to my work with bananas since my farm is just at 550 metres of altitude. But even here winter is not harsh indeed, in fact prickly pears grow wild up to 600 metres of altitude and up to the same altitude is possible to cultivate citrus in open field (with possible occasional damages only for the lemon or citron). Thus I am trying to cultivate bananas also on the hills, confident that latitude will be helpful and that the pure hair of the hills will contribute. At the same time, I have a small garden on the seaside, and there I planted some bananas because as I said there is no problem to their growth there.

Sorry for the many words, and best wishes to all