harveyc

Tong, I had lurked this board for some time before even joining, just reading about different varieties people were having success with, winter strategies, etc. At one time Joe Real thought he had introduced me to the forum but I had been lurking here before meeting him on the citrus forum. I started growing some small tissue culture plants in 2005 and they attained pretty good size in 2006, just 3 varieties (at least 1 was mis-labeled), but I did not have much experience to write about at that time. Then, in January 2007, my 4 mats (2 were of the same variety) got clobbered by an Arctic blast of temperatures in the low 20s for one week. I had 1 variety die completely (supposedly Ice Cream) and the rest died back to the corm, so I started from scratch that spring with new pups that emerged from those corms. As the growth of those progressed in the summer of 2007 and my interest in bananas increased, I started acquiring a greater fascination with bananas and collecting many more varieties. I started to have more to write about at that time, especially when Joe Real gave me a Cal Gold that was fully gron (psuedostem was 9'1", as I recall) and it flowered a couple of weeks after I transplanted it and gave me something like 12 fingers! LOL That was my first official bunch, but I obviously could not take credit for that. Still, I gradually wrote more as I gained experience in potting up pups, transplanting them into the ground, etc. At the end of 2008 I had perhaps 25 varieties but many of those did not survive due to crowded conditions in my heated shop, inadequate watering, over-watering, or whatever. Although I thought it was ridiculous that anybody would ever pay more than $50 for a banana, I ended up doing that several times to buy several Ae Ae pups (2 of 4 died) and a few other variegated bananas. I think that was a sign that this "infectious" disease of banana collecting made the symptoms very obvious and I was addicted. So I spent more time here, acquired more friends here, and shared more of my own experiences with others who were newer to the hobby or who didn't have experience with some varieties. In 2008 I had 3 varieties flower/fruit for me so I finally felt I had enough experience to share with others. Plus, I've killed at least 20 bananas through various causes, and those are also valuable experiences to share. I believe there may have been around 400 members when I joined, but I may be mistaken about that. The forum has grown tremendously so now there are many more posts to respond to than before.

My own posting is somewhat seasonable also. I will probably be cutting back on my activity here for a bit as I am getting new irrigation systems going in my new blocks of chestnuts (186 trees in one area and about 50 in another) and will be starting irrigation of my 130 acres of alfalfa in a couple of days (baling started today). Once I have all the lines in place I may very well post some at various times as I am often up around the clock every few hours.

As far as people who are not active here, I believe many people joined to just post a question or two, got their answers, and left. Maybe they were trying to grow bananas in a very challenging climate and just didn't have the motivation to work that hard to continue growing bananas. For others, they may have a general interest in gardening and thought bananas were interesting, but have moved on to try other things. Yet others are probably actively growing a few types of bananas and are not interested in anything more. If a city dweller has picked out a small area of their landscaping to dedicate to bananas, it might be just enough room for a few varieties so there is not really much more they're interested in chatting about once they have things figured out.

No, some have got put off by bickering, etc. and just leave and forget about the forum. I think that's natural with any forum and I think the membership in this group is about as stable as one can expect.

One very large forum I belong to sends out an e-mail to forum members about twice a month to list "hot topics". This is something that might work here, bringing up subjects to folks that don't drop by to visit otherwise. Maybe I'll post that in the section for such recommendations.

Tog, you're a great asset to this forum and if you quit posting some day I'll have to send my Louisiana mafia friend Pete over to come shake you up a little. Got that??!!! LOL

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