has a dream

Howdy st. Louisan. I've herd great things about older Christmas lights that get hot

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Lord Snooty

I've thought about this in the past and as I only have a small outside area, the initial capital outlay wouldn't be too great in my case. As well as the cables and thermostat you'd need a suitable weatherproof outdoor electricity supply and a built in or separate R.C.D. (residual current device) or similar to protect against over heating and short circuits. I decided against it after looking into it further, for the following reasons.

Soil heating cables are usually used in heated sand boxes or on greenhouse benches or to turn a cold frame into a hot frame or sometimes in the ground of greenhouse borders to get an early start germinating/raising seedlings or to get an early start growing short season annuals out of their normal growing season.

Although soil is a better conductor of heat than air, if used outside, most of the heat would dissipate into the surrounding soil away from the root zone and float away into the atmosphere without any structure to the sides and over the top to keep it in, thus using quite a lot of electricity to keep a decent temperature. I don't know about where you are, but here in Britain where I live electricity prices are high and seem to go up by 10% to 20% a year.

I have read of a woman who used heat cables outside to grow an early crop of carrots and beets, but only for germination, and I think she runs or supplies a restaurant so presumably she offsets the cost of the electricity by selling her produce.

See here:[url="http://www.growbetterveggies.com/growbetterveggies/2008/01/soil-heating-ca.html[/URL]

If growing any perennials including bananas, the roots would probably touch the cables or the cables would be ''swallowed" by the roots in the growing season and when you came to switch the heat on in the winter, the cables may burn the roots. If you buried the cables deep enough to avoid this happening they would probably supply minimal heat.

Weeding may also be a problem unless you did it by hand as you wouldn't be able to use a hoe. Cutting pups would be impossible for fear of cutting through the cables. Rodents such as rats and mice could also be a problem as they seem to have a particular fondness for chewing through electrical cables, and once they're cut I don't think they can be joined together again, unlike ordinary electric cables that only require a plastic connector and a bit of tape.

Just a few thoughts and by no means a reason not to try them.
Good luck.

Uncle Fester

I used a couple of them last year, I buried them fairly deep and they were a pain to put in.
I had a fairly large bed of basjoos and I pulled the soil back and ran the cable around (about 8 to 10 inches away) from existing basjoos that I was re planting in early spring that I over wintered inside a warehouse.
Worked good that first year, they grew like crazy that summer, a couple getting well over 12' tall and they pupped like crazy. But yes the problem came in when I decided to take them out in the fall. Almost impossible without destroying the cable. I should have probably just left them in.
Now just trying to motivate myself once again to do it this year.
My opinion probably only good for a year or two and if you decide not to take them out for the winter.

natej740

Here ya go...worked well for this guy...

1 Year Basjoo Growth in Mass.

Hammocked Banana

This changes everything!!!!

hasty22

I used heat cables on my musa basjoo this winter and I just unwrapped them today . They look great . They might hit the roof this year , looking pretty tall already!! Hit Plus 20 C today