Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

I've heard wonderful things about growing your own bananas, but or those of us who live far north of the usual places like the tropics, or California, Florida and such, how many folk growing northern Bananas (like Ohio, DC, PA, MA and such) actually have a long enough outdoor season that you get to enjoy the fruits of your beautiful plants?

I saw Sandy's greenhouse ice cream banana fruit in Muncie IN - they look very cool, but I mean really outside, or perhaps in moving containers ...

If its not going to happen with my pot bound ice cream bananas, thats ok to, its an amazing looking plant that we are having great fun with, but if there are actual cool climate plants we can get fruit from, that would be very nice as well.

No flames meant to anyway, just seeking enlightenment on these delightful darlings ...

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

For now, the best chance you have is to get a nice small variety, such as 'Dwarf Cavendish', and grow it in a large container, either inside all the time or moving the container outdoors for the summer. Small cultivars can actually grow quite well in containers, even comparable to in the ground if the right conditions are met.

There are some cultivars out there that may suit northern growers outdoors, and some are even being developed and more may be developed in the future, but for now they are not an option for the hobby growers to go out and find somewhere.

Many people are interested in this magical hardy, quick and edible banana, but the fact is bananas are tropical, and so its not so easy to just find or create the magic hardy banana, but perhaps one day it will become a reality.

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

I had high hopes for a dwarf cav that I had for 2 years, potting it up in the fall to go inside, then planting it again in the spring. This last fall I brought it in and stored it bare root in my basement. It was at least 6 ft. p-stem, and with double p-stems from the same corm! It made it through the winter fine, and indeed started to put out new leaves. I brought it out when the nights were at least 50 (my usual sign to start replanting) and sited it at the same location as last year. All looked great, but after around 3 weeks both p-stems started to turn to mush. I finally cut to good tissue at almost the corm level. It has now put out 9 p-stems, but since they're new again I guess I've missed my chance for fruit, at least for a year or so.

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

I have a friend here in St. Louis that has half dozen varieties that get, maybe, 3 to 6 feet tall (dwarf and super dwarf?). He has them in pots. He plants the pots in the front yard and brings them into an attached garage and places the on the side next to the house for winter.

The other side (east) has high windows which permits the sun to pass across them each day.

He has a spare set of pots which he puts in the holes when he brings in the potted bananas.

He gets bananas every summer.

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

Well I saw an Ad for a sale at Sandy's place last week, so I ordered a pair of Dwarf Cavendish plants from Northern Tropics - they just arrived today and I rushed them into pots and out into the sun right away.

They are very nice looking healthy and large plants, I'm quite impressed with the sale!

While they may not grow huge like the Java Blue beside them, they do have a great start and will hopefully acclimate before I have to bring them in for winter ...

I'll figure out next year if I'll pop them into the ground ... but the pots will be fine to start with!





Thanks for the great plants, Sandy!

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

I wish I was in zone 7 I could really do something! Here's a bunch of Ice Cream bananas( from Sandy) I grew last summer In New Jersey zone 6a. The pup I kept from this plant is in the ground and now over 9' tall( measured at the p-stem height) already.





Another variety to grow in the north is veinte cohol. Here's last years bunch:


It can be done you just have to go the extra mile and baby them over the winter. Check out the "Time to put the bananas to sleep for the winter thread I believ in the cold hardy section. There's lots to learn there to start.

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

Neat pix, Bob.

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

Bob, I can't recall, did you ever get the Veinte Cohol fruits to ripen?

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

Very nice!

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

Mark , I did get some of the fruits to ripen. Since it was late October when it flowered I had to dig it up and move it to a nearby friends sunroom in a huge pot where it continued to produce hands for a short while. There were over 100 fingers Unfortunately a lot of the fingers died off no doubt due to the transplant shock even though I kept a huge amount of soil and didn't dig near the corm. The fruit that did ripen tasted like Hawaiian apple bananas to me. I'll definitely be growing that variety from now on.

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

That's a great picture Bob. Love the machete!
Also, thanks for all the archival info too! I went back and read through all the "Time to put the Bananas to sleep for Winter" - thread - you are MOST impressive!! But I don't have the back for that kind of work anymore - whew!
Thanks for sharing tho - it does give me an idea of what's required ... maybe if we can move some books and speakers around in the front room, I can fit our Ice Cream Banana inside for the winter ... in its pot!

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

Bob, thanks for the report on the Veinte Cohol fruit. Hawaiian apple (=dwarf Brazilian) is a delicious banana, so VC must be good. Congrats on getting it to produce fruit.

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

This Ice Cream banana is growing like gangbusters ... likes the hot weather!

Emma is not short, but its dwarfing her in this July 30th picture.
We have 2 Super Mini dwarf cavendish plants (thanks Sandy!)
we just got this week in the pots beside it.

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

I just now saw this post, what a latecomer I've been. I'm so happy you all are having good success with my plants, but it's due to your efforts, not mine! I'm just glad they went to such good homes.
Bob that is awesome about your banana bunches!
My big ice cream had put out another flag leaf, but it blew over in a windstorm the other day. Guess which stem broke off at the base? We chopped it open with the knife, there was the bloom, right at the top :(
That is three years in a row that at least one stem in that "mat in a pot" has bloomed, or was going to
2011 the ill fated one, there are two more large ones still in the pot left though and a small pup.
2010 fall, 1 stem, 2010 mid winter 1 stem
2009 1 stem

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

Sandy, how big is the pot you have this mat in? It must be huge. Sorry about that stem with the bud you lost. That hurts.

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

That's a huge tree. :08:

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

My buddy Brian has a Saba that has about 30 fingers on it now in zone 6 but its already frosted 2 days in a row here so I doubt they will get ripe before its time to go inside. just have to cut it down and let it go. Hoping at some point I can produce a little fruit in zone 6

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

An acquaintance tells me that if the fruit has most of its size; He leaves the stalk on the plant when he brings it in. He claims that still attached to the corm it will grow some more (even without leaves) and he can harvest them in January or February. I am still waiting for my first bloom.
George

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

I think some of the best varieties for northern growers are not the Cavendish but the Orinoco and related species. Why? Because the pseudostems tend to overwinter without dieback.

Re: Northern Growers - Bananas you can eat!
 

Yeah I will keep the cavendish types I have now just to have them but I think I am going after the orinoco family for fruit production next year

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.