kelehawaii

I am a retired banana farmer located on the 'Big Island' of Hawai'i. Now, in my retirement, I am dedicating the rest of my time on Planet Earth to volunteering as a teacher of banana cultivation in my local community. I no longer have acreage under cultivation but merely a very small residential lot in the southwest section of the town of Hilo which is the rainiest town in the entire United States. The average annual rainfall at my location is in excess of 180 inches per year which, of course, bananas dearly love especially since there is excellent drainage here due to the fact that the soils are volcanic and well-drained on the lower slopes of Mauna Loa.

Since my current space available is very small, I have had to plant my bananas at very close spacing since I now have 11 varieties in the collection and since bananas are such thirsty 'beings', the high rainfall sure helps but with my spacing, which averages a mere 3 feet on average, I often need to irrigate if it does not rain for more than 24 hours. That's ok as I enjoy doing it and the plants seem to also enjoy me hanging out with them and giving them the tradewind showers that Mother Nature skips now and then! We are all getting along just fine.

Caloosamusa

Aloha and welcome to the organization Kelehawaii!!

I hope to learn more from your banana experience. Does that include experience with Fe'i?

Best wishes and welcome to the organization!!

Bob

Welcome aboard. Look forward to hearing more of your growing experiences. 3' sounds real close to me. Is your soil that fertile? Do you plan on extra feeding? I was planning on cramming my collection in at about 5' mainly because most are still very small and will have to be transplanted each year. Your place sounds very interesting. Please post some pics when you can.

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mskitty38583

welcome to the org. cant wait to see pics of your nana family.

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WELCOME TO THE GATOR NATION

momoese

After reading your website I see you have no internet access . How far do you have to travel to gain access?

Do you get many people staying there?

kelehawaii

I do have internet access here in the town of Hilo. In fact it is
very good and supplied by Time-Warner Cable and is broadband.
My download speeds are often in the neighborhood of 15,000 kbps
except during periods of heavy traffic in my node when it will sometimes
drop temporarily in the 5,000 kbps range.

kelehawaii

Despite the fertility of volcanic soil, my spacing requires regular
fertilization as well as irrigation when the rainfall is not an inch per
day. I used organically derived fertilizers such as Urea (46-0-0) and
potash from similar sources. High nitrogen and potash are a must
for optimum productivity and quality of genus Musa. Without that
present it is difficult, at best, to achieve 'market grade' quality.

kelehawaii

I will indeed post some photos as soon as I can figure out how
to do it!

Tog Tan

Aloha Kele! Welcome to the best 'naner place on earth. We are all happy and friendly folks here! Hope to hear more from you soon. All the best!

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Tog Tan has sadly suddenly passed away 6/16/09. We will miss you Tog Tan.

lorax

Welcome aboard, Kele! To post pictures, click on "Photo Gallery" in the top bar. Then choose the option that says "Upload Photos" and follow the instructions. It's that easy!

It's good to hear from another banana grower on volcanic soils!

kelehawaii

Well..I did that and it seems, from what I can gather, that
it is a very complicated procedure with many steps as opposed
to how I do it on my Yahoo Group that is related to self sufficiency
gardening here on the Big Island. I may have to figure out a different
way to make the photos available to members of this forum. I'm
rather pressed for time now with the teaching I am doing as well
as managing the newly created local group. You can see a photo
of my 'Santa Catarina' bananas in bloom in my backyard on the
group home page:
BigIslandSelfSufficiency : BigIslandSelfSufficiency

Chironex

Greeting Kele and welcome to bananaland! Yes, posting photos here is a bit more complicated than most sites, but you will get the hang of it soon. We are all anxious to see your bananas and I imagine that being a teacher, you may have some nice instructional guides, diagrams, etc. We are all here to learn and share experiences with bananas and other plants.

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Scot

momoese

Kele, you say that the picture on your homepage is "Santa Catarina". It looks really tall in the picture. How tall is it? I grow Hawaiian Apples AKA Tall Brazilian in my yard that were brought over to California from Hawaii and they are very tall! It's my understanding that "Santa Catarina" are the same as Dwarf Brazilian and are not very tall.

Here is something that one of our banana experts wrote a while back.

kelehawaii

Yes. I have both of the Brazilians..tall and short in my backyard. The 'standards' fruit at 20 feet and the 'dwarfs' fruit at about 10 to 12 feet. I got my first 'Santa Catarina Prata' dwarf in 1980 from my ag professor at the University of Hawai'i College of Tropical Agriculture. I had about 200 mats of them on my plantation but they did not, for whatever reason, grow as tall as they do here in town. 'Normally' the dwarfs will fruit at slightly higher than 'Williams' do but they are amazing me right outside my window
here in Hilo though the elevation above sea level..800 feet...is the same as my plantation in Kurtistown which is only 8 miles southwest of my current location. Go figure!

momoese

After reading your last post I realized that I had you mistaken for another member in Hawaii. Thanks for your reply anyway though!

kelehawaii

The 'dwarf apple' I have fruits at a height of between 10 and 12 feet. The standard, of which I only have two at present as I've given most of the ratoons away) go up to at least 20 feet. which is a bit too high for comfort now that I'm an old and slightly feeble man.

DoctorSteve

Welcome to the forum!

kelehawaii

Well, I've been here for a few years but lately have not been making any forum posts. I occasionally take some pics of the banana plants in my collection but have been rather lax in that too for awhile. I'll try to do better!