Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

I'm about to winterize my banana plants for the first time and I'm wondering if anyone has ever used pipe insulation to wrap theirs? I was thinking of using that along with a cage filled with leaves and straw then covering it so rain doesn't soak it. Any feedback?

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

Just throwing some helpful info out there to other northern growers, I'm way up here in Washington state, pretty darn far north, (not super cold, but we do freeze and we NEVER get hot in the summer) - And so far, my biggest endorsement goes to Namwah bananas. Now remember, if you're buying a "Blue Java" or "IceCream" banana from a Nursery there's a good chance it is actually a Namwah. I've got some that for their first year grew several feet tall, then winter hit down to the 20's and I honestly didn't protect them very well, but, their P-Stem still survives low 30's pretty well. The main root, though, survives the 20's without much protection, and after I thought my bananas died that winter, I watered them the following spring anyway, and what do ya know - I've got new nanners that popped up just this last summer. No fruit yet, but, to do that I'd have to protect the entire P-Stem and let it grow for more than 10 total months.

Also to note, this is my first year in trying Thousand Fingers and Raja Puri and both, although really small and young, survived a good freeze. Their leaves died back, but after potting them up and moving them indoors for the winter, they're starting to grow new leaves from the stem. Even my Double somehow survived the freeze, which really surprised me. It's stem is less than a foot tall, and amazingly has a new leaf coming up.

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

I'm in NC zone coastal 8b and this is my first time wintering Namwah outside. I put a chicken wire cage design around it. Mulched several feet deep around it. Then I plan to wrap it with plastic. The leaves didn't fry till we got are first lowest time this year yet 28*. Its five foot tall and 12" or more thick. I have seen a dozen or more Orinoco throwing fruit here in the past years since I got into Bananas.

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

If you cut the Saba before frost and place the stalk indoors in a bucket of water won't the fruit continue to ripen that way. I read this for another variety on a growers page.

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

The fruit would most likely ripen and turn out just fine, but I highly doubt leaving it attached and putting it in a bucket of water is really doing anything significant.

Banana fruit will ripen at almost any point of maturity when harvested, even if they are significantly underdeveloped. If harvested under-mature, they normally take longer to ripen, and sometimes may not have as much flavor, but they will ripen.