gaberoo

Hi all,
Glad to join this forum. I hope to contribute with some answers,eventually (definitely with any helpful info I may have), but for now I hope you'll tolerate my many questions. To start,at our last meeting at the rare fruit council the topic was permaculture and someone asked what the permaculture method of fertilizing bananas would be...specially seeing that they might be heavy feeders needing plenty fertilization. Anyone have helpful tips on this?
Thanks,
gabe

Richard

Welcome,

There are a lot of definitions of permaculture floating around these days, could you point us at a definition you agree with or give us a brief synopsis of your concept?

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gaberoo

Boy...that's a "tall order" for a newbie like myself Richard, but the concept I got (from the limited exposure I've had) is that permaculture is about using elements of the natural environment to obtain optimal (or at least adequate) growth of the different contributing species.

In this case, it would be trying to use the different plants in one's garden/yard for mulch/fertilizer for the banana plant. Supposedly, one should plant species according to how well they complement each other. How achievable this concept is, in reality, is...well...open to question. For instance, if one does not have a "mini" banana plantation, how does one go about using bananas to fertilize/mulch other bananas? Sure, if you have one plant that is bearing fruit and is about to "die", you can easily use that stalk as fertilizer for a young plant (pup), but is this enough? Maybe it is...I don't know. That's my question.

Also, can there be other plants (say comfrey for example) which when "plowed under" can serve as a source of potassium, iron and other such elements used by fruiting plants/trees?

laserlight

I dont know much about permaculture but this is a interesting article i found on doing that for banana plants.
Oh and welcome to the forum. =)
Australian Permaculture. More than just organic gardening

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gaberoo

Thanks,

Interesting (they are planting papaya, watercress, citronella grass, sweet potatoes) in the vicinity of the bananas.

Apparently Australia has quite a few permaculture gurus since the two people who do permaculture in south florida (Broward and Miami Dade) have listed that they trained under people in Australia.

I'm currently mulching heavily only on my Red Iholena (sp?) as per advice from the nursery where I bought it. I use the dried banana leaves from the plant itself, from other banana plants, and dried leaves from my heliconias.

Richard

Well, you did a great job.

When growing vegetables and fruiting plants, a large portion of the nutrient consumption goes into the fruit and leaves (e.g., lettuce) that are consumed by humans. The secondary plants you mentioned (e.g., comfrey) do not manufacture minerals out of thin air but of course remove them from the soil. So this concept of permaculture as described in popular literature is actually intractable.

However, there is merit to the concept as described here: Wikipedia : Permaculture.

Also, there is a classic book on the subject which I recommend to everyone with an interest in sustainable agriculture: Maurice Kains, "Five acres and independence".

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gaberoo

Thanks Richard.

I'll look into that book. Sounds very interesting.