Blake09

...to over winter my bananas. In this post I am overwintering m. basjoo (shorter one) and Ice Cream 'blue java' (the tallest).





From this:



To this:



And then this:



And this is how I did it:

I learned alot along the way, and also made mistakes too. I didnt show, but I stuffed the barrels with straw.

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I had some Guinea Fowl help along the way too:





Some of the hundreds of Banana leaves... future compost, and guinea fowl food


I will be showing how I protected the bananas around my pond next...









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A banana plant in the autumn gale -
I listen to the dripping of rain
Into a basin at night.
~ Basho Matsuo (1644- 1694)

Bob

Very cool and well done Blake! Nice to see I'm not the only one with piles of banana leaves all over the yard!

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Jananas Bananas

Good JOB Blake! Your Guineas are so cute!

~JaNan

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Jananas Bananas

The Hollyberry Lady

Olafhenny

Thank you, Blake, I really like your approach. It gives the plant some room and some air.

Thanks for sharing. That alone makes the 5 bucks I had to lay out to join the B.ORG worthwhile.
Best.
Olaf

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[size="4"][b]I/SIZE]

eric27

Great video Blake! Thanks. Have you used this method before?

Blake09

Thanks!

No I havent used this method before. I just has some spare barrels laying around and wanted them to go to use. I think that in this method you could use many different insulators, like foam, fiberglass, leaves, straw, etc and then also wrap big X-mas lights around the p-stem. But the bananas are way to far from an outlit, and I had some straw leftover and I used it. As they say: *Reduce, Reuse, Recycle*




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__________________

A banana plant in the autumn gale -
I listen to the dripping of rain
Into a basin at night.
~ Basho Matsuo (1644- 1694)

palmtree

Very cool! How old is your ice cream banana? I plan on putting mine in the ground next summer, but I think Ill dig it up in the fall.

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Location: New York City, zone 7b

Blake09

Both of my bananas have been with me for a year, I dont know how long before me though.

The Ice Cream might be 2 years old, but again Ive only had it for 1 year. Ime hoping for a bloom (and fruit) next year, thats why I didnt chop it down.




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__________________

A banana plant in the autumn gale -
I listen to the dripping of rain
Into a basin at night.
~ Basho Matsuo (1644- 1694)

asacomm

eric27

Let us know how they turn out in spring. That is a pretty interesting method you have there. I'm curious how they turn out.

Blake09

Update....






























































Ice cream:



Mother basjoo and her two pups:





New basjoo matt:



My basjoo and her two pups overwintered fine and it was pushing up a leaf in earley febuary. It and its two pups lost no p-stem over the winter it now has three pups, the two big ones that you see and one small one about 4in tall so far. My Ice Cream died in the spring time, its p-stem survived over the winter but never pushed up a leaf in the spring. The ice creams pup survived over the winter and was growing like crazy wile the mother plants p-stem slowley withered. The one Ice cream pup that I have now put out a pup and I am now back up to having two ICe Cream plants. The new basjoo mat that I have, I picked up four banana plants last fall at a local persons house and only two survived and poped up over the summer. My Truley tiney plant died but I had saved one pup inside and It is growing now in the old truley tiney's place by the pond.

__________________

A banana plant in the autumn gale -
I listen to the dripping of rain
Into a basin at night.
~ Basho Matsuo (1644- 1694)

cherokee_greg

I never saw this before wow your mind must go a million miles a second ! What ideas you come up with. My chickens love the leaves too.
LOL Good job.

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Greg zone 9 Fresno,CA
http://gardenjot.com/garden/view/1980/Gregs-Banana-Farm

Blake09

Heres a update pic on the main banana garden:

__________________

A banana plant in the autumn gale -
I listen to the dripping of rain
Into a basin at night.
~ Basho Matsuo (1644- 1694)

orinoko

Thanks Blake!!

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http://www.unep.org/newscentre/animations/cbd_web.swf

Blake09

The time has come once again. We had our first frost last night, see the damage here: My Bananas at the end of the season! The old farmers almanac was 2 days off of the frost prediction, far better than our local forcast.



Alocasia elephant ears packed up and ready to go:





Truley tiney:














pup found after digging up the mulch:











All done with the truley tiney:



Sorry about the blurry pics, the camera does not do good in low light. More bananas to come!









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__________________

A banana plant in the autumn gale -
I listen to the dripping of rain
Into a basin at night.
~ Basho Matsuo (1644- 1694)