Time to store the bananas, dormant for the Winter
 

It's the time of year that I dread...time to dig up the bananas. For those of us in colder zones with no greenhouse, we have to do it in order to ever get fruit. Everybody has their own methods of overwintering bananas. This is just what works for me.

Here's the last picture of my mini-plantation, the day before I started digging.



The next day, I started by cutting most of the leaves off of the pseudostems. P-stems with fruit were left alone.



I couldn't quite comfortably reach the top few leaves on a few, so I dug them first.


Digging them is actually pretty easy. The roots are pretty shallow, and easy to cut. I just cut a circle around each plant, and gently get underneath the corm with a shovel and tip them over.



We had .02 inches of rain in October, so the ground was nice and dry, as were the corms. Normally, if the corms were wet, I would let them dry out in the sun for a day or two. At this step, you can clear all of the dirt and cut the roots off if you want to. I tried to clear as much dirt off as possible, just because it makes moving the plants a bit easier. They are heavy enough without dirt weighing them down any more. The roots left on the corm will die anyway, so cutting them off will not hurt the plant in any way. Due to the fact that I had so many plants to dig and move, I didn't bother with the roots. Here's what one looked like after clearing most of the dirt from it.



Here's a few plants, ready to store. Notice that I have left pups on the mother corm. A couple fell off in the moving process, but that's ok. The whole idea here is that when the mother p-stem is through fruiting next year (hopefully), the pups will still have a large corm to draw energy from. They grow exponentially faster when left attached to the mother corm!



The p-stem in the middle of this picture is about 7 1/2 feet tall, and started growing from the ground from a mother corm last Spring. I have a couple more pups that are even larger than this (8 feet or so) that started at ground level also from a mother corm. In contrast, I have had a couple of plants that originated as pups separated from mother corms that have yet to achieve 7 feet after 2 full seasons!



Banana plants, ready to store under the house. The large plant in the middle has a nine foot p-stem, and the whole plant weighed several hundred pounds. One of the large pups broke off of this one in transit.



Normally, I would have left a leaf on most of these plants. The nine-footer pictured above had several leaves left on it, because I am anticipating a bloom very soon on this one. In fact, I was quite shocked that it hasn't bloomed yet, as others have bloomed around eight feet. The more leaves that the plant has at blooming time, the bigger the bunches of fruit. You don't NEED to leave any leaves on the plant, the theory is that it will help the plant start growing quicker come Spring (more green surfaces to make energy). After taking these pictures, I cut every leaf off of my plants because I am moving them all to Knoxville, TN from Nashville. I am moving there next month.

I also dug up my musella lasiocarpas to take with me. They are one of my very favorite banana plants! They also store VERY well dormant under the house. Here they are. Hopefully I'll get a couple of flowers next year from the two biggest plants.



After loading them all into a trailer for the trip to Knoxville, here's what it looked like. That's the 9 footer on the left side.



After arriving in Knoxville, I took another picture of the trailer, sans tarp.



Then I got a few boards together and placed them in the crawl space. They are just more a precaution than anything else. I stack the corms on them, in case water were to somehow flood the crawl space. I don't have any pictures of this process because it was getting dark and I was tired and just trying to get it all done. This is the hardest part of the whole deal. Dragging corms underneath the house can be tricky and hard work! They are awkward and heavy, and I only have a few feet of headroom under the house to work with. After stacking the plants under the house, you can throw a sheet or two over them if you want if it makes you feel better. I didn't. They also don't get one drop of water all Winter.

Hope this helps somebody. It's all in fun! The whole reason is to get fruit, obviously. I did put a few pretty small pseudostems under the house too, in hope that they would make it. Some don't. It's not a fool-proof method, and doesn't work with every banana, but it should with most. Cool, dry, and dark works very well in my experience. Good luck to everyone overwintering their bananas this Winter, and I hope you all get large bunches of fruit next year!

- Frank

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Thanks for sharing the process very clearly. This would help a lot of banana growers in the more colder regions. Truly outstanding hard work, what I mean, your time to take pics and show it to us.

I usually don't go to this much trouble over here in zone 9 California as I already narrowed down my plants to those that would stay put during the winterr in the ground but would bloom and bear fruits by mid-spring. I do have the cold sensitive types potted and I haul the pots into the garage, with their leaves and all. When the subsequent forecasts starts to dip below the minimum temp of 38 deg F, that's the time I haul them in, using a dolly. I put them out when min temp forecasts starts to go above 38 deg F.


Excellent and outstanding job!

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Wow! Fantastic tutorial. Great pics too! \

Will you have more room to grow at the new location? What varieties do you grow? What variety is the nine footer? What type produces best in your location out of the varieties you grow? Sorry, about the 20 questions.

Thanks for sharing!

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Thank you for the nice words, Joe and Sodak!

Sodak, most of those are Tall Orinocos, which seem to produce pretty well here. They don't take forever to mature and ripen, like some varieties do. I have dwarf orinoco also, which someday will probably replace the talls. I'm also growing raja puri, belle, goldfinger, FHIA-3 sweetheart, ice cream, 1000 fingers, brazilian, and a bunch of ornamentals. Most of those are not good choices for my climate, but I thought I'd try anyway!

The 9 footer is tall orinoco.

Yes, I will have LOTS more room to grow bananas at my new location! My girlfriend has a HUGE backyard, which I can't wait to start tearing up. :D

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Let me know when you're ready to get rid of some tall Orinocos. I'd be happy to pay for a big corm, or whatever you would unload. :)

Thanks for the info!

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Frank, You are one dedicated banana man!! I don't know if I would be willing to do that much work if I couldn't leave them in the ground year round. One thing I noticed is that Orinocos don't seem to have very big corms. I remember one time I had to move a Saba and the corm was so big and so heavy that I could not lift it out of the hole that I had dug around it. I had to tie a rope around it and drag it out of the hole and across the yard to it's new spot. It just about killed me! I wish I would have taken a picture of it, it was massive!!

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Frank, this thread is AAA+! Absolutely the best thread on overwintering bananas.
Hopefully this post is bookmarked by all would be cold climate banana growers.
Great work!
Mike

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Thanks, Mike! Wow, I appreciate the kind words and praise! I see overwintering questions all of the time on forums. If people only knew how easy it really is.

Jeff, maybe that's why I haven't tried saba yet! Even though corms of tall orinoco may be smaller, get one with a nine foot pseudostem and several large pups attached, and it is nasty heavy! Eventually, I'd like to get all dwarf varieties, with maybe a few talls here and there. I'd like to get my hands on a Cal. Gold next Spring too!

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Great work BigDog, on both your process and the way you captured your process!

I also have an over wintering question,
This year I planted an unknown banana plant in container which I then place in the ground.
The plant did okay but really didn't grow tall about 3ft.
I now need to over winter because as many of you know it gets pretty cold north of the border.
Now the question, should I store it in its container as is or should I take it out and strip off all the leaves and dirt?:confused:
Either way I will place it in a cool dark dry place in my basement.

By the way here's a picture of it I took this summer.


P.S.
I agree with Bananavilla's Quote:
Reagrds

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Oh yes, a California Gold is exactly what I would like to have too.
Jeff, or any body else, would you send a pup to Switzerland?
I will pay you, no problem.
I have Misi lukis, Ice cream, Sikkimensis and FHIA 18 that I am going to over winter this way.
And it`s the first way that I overwinter any bananas this way and I`m totaly excited about it!
Thank you Frank for sharing your experience with us.

Dwarf Orinoco and Dwarf Brazilian are still small enough to fit inside the house even they are already touching the ceiling of the livingroom.
I hopefully will have a bloom on them next year.

Marcel

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

PhilMusa: As long as your basement is a few degrees above freezing and you don't water, you don't need to take out the leaves. That's what I do every winter for my cold sensitive plants. I just haul them in. I clean only the dead and yellow leaves. I keep them in the dark. Sometimes when the temperature gets too high, like about 13 deg C (> 55 deg F) or more (it happens in my garage), then I turn on the bright CF lights for a few hours, water sparingly if the pot becomes really dry. This keeps their leaves green. Most tropical plants become inactive when temperature falls below 55 deg F, that is my guideline when to flip the switch on inside the unheated garage. So if you have a greenhouse, that would be a nice guideline too.

The way most tropical plants gets damaged during the onset of the colder months is due to chilling injury. The chilling injury occurs when temperature is cold (different plants have different temperature tolerances) in the presence of strong PAR (Photosynthetically Active Region) lights. When the leaves get hit by these lights, electrons in the chloroplasts gets energized, but the rest of the photosynthetic appratus is still asleep (metabolically inactive) due to cold temperature. The energized electrons with nowhere to go will damage the surrounding tissues when it dissipates its energy. So it is better to keep it dark when it is cold. You can see the injury similar to bleached or burnt leaf, because they literally burn from the inside. And we are talking about above freezing temperature here.

Below the chilling injury when it gets colder still is the freezing injury. Freezing injury is of course debilitating when temperature gets below freezing point. Ice crystals simply damaged the tissues physically. Freezing can be caused by frosts or simply cold freezing air temperature. Banana freezes below 0 deg C (32 deg F) by a few degrees (4-8 deg F below pure water) due to the solutes in their sap. Drier bananas will survive much lower freezing temperature than the wet succulent ones because their solute gets concentrated when they're drier.

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Wow, Joe, what a great explanation! I stick anything I can in the crawl space, including EEs, cannas, bananas (potted also), etc.

Phil, I agree with Joe, you can keep the leaves on your banana and store it in the basement (wish I had one!). You'll lose a few to yellowing probably, but that's ok and nothing to worry about. By the way, your banana looks like a young ensete ventricosum to me. Thank you for your kind words also!

Maesy, thank you, and I hope everything stores just fine for you.

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Bigdog.....

VERY INFORMATIVE.. what a great job !!! AAA+.... You cut those leaves off like it's nothing.. I'm scared to death because I feel like I'd kill the plant.. Well, I'm not gonna have a choice soon. I just looked at my dwarf cavendish and it's already at the top of my greenhouse - I'm gonna have to bring him in and put him to sleep or just let him kinda hang out in one of my rooms. ugghh.

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

yupper yu got it going on..

nice plants and bunches of hard work ..

aren't yu gonna replace those with the d.o.?? little less work..

i saw where hp gve yu a big well deserved atta boy, instead of "yu shuld hve"..:ha: sometimes just don't get those folks..

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Thanks, SG. Yep, I do plan on replacing them with d.o. It'll be awhile before I have enough to replace them though. Until then, I'll keep torturing myself :ha: ! It wouldn't be so bad if I had a full-sized basement. The hardest part is lugging them underneath the house via a small, crawl space door. Then, once you get them under there you have to move them around, stack them, etc. Hard to do with only a few feet of headroom! Digging them is the easy part. My problem is I don't seem to want to get rid of any bananas. I just keep on adding and adding to my collection. And my girlfriend, whom I am moving in with in Knoxville, has a HUGE backyard with lots of sun :D ...

Ditto on the hp ;) . It's all good.

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Frank (BigDog): I have several D.O. that I plan to dispose of next spring. Just holler if you want corm (expensive shipping) or the pup without leaves. Just pay for the shipping, and maybe $2.00 more for the gas and packing tapes. Offered only for you, because of the great pics.

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Frank-I agree with the other posts about the excellent job you did with your photos and documentation of your work. That is an excellent "how to" for anyone wanting to store their plants during the winter. Fantastic Job!!!!!

I also sent you a PM about your wish list. ;)

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

GaTrops,
Why can I smell Tissue Cultured Dwarf Orinoco's in the air? :rolleyes:
Mike

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Thank you Joe! I'm probably going to take you up on that offer. Storing d.o.'s would be a bit easier than those talls.

Richard, thanks for saying so! I hope this post helps answer some questions for people, as I tend to see the same questions over and over on GW.

Bobby, thank you. Don't be afraid! Bananas are tough, man!

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Thanks JoeReal for your detailed response to my question, very informative. I don't know what else to say other than "WOW"!

BigDog thanks for the ID on the plant. I can now do some research on my ensete ventricosum.

Regards to everyone!

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Wow, Frank!!! You are one dedicated banana grower! Great pics and narrative. Thanks for sharing!

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Let me begin by saying I can't believe you dig up that entire plantation every year. It is astonishing how well that seems to be working for you.

Second, I came to the board to find out how deep I would have to dig to move my banana with a 6' pseudostem and 3 pups, and found it on the first thread I read! What a great resource.

Thanks

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Those pictures are so classic!

"Have 'nanners, will travel." :ha:

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Your new neighbors are in for a bit of a surprise come spring time! ;)

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Yeah...the neighbors aren't even going to see it coming :D .

Ok, here is the rest of the thread that I should've included into the original post. Here is the crawl space door that they ALL went into.



And here is a few shots of the bananas stored under the house. Don't ask me how many there are...I don't know!




You can see that there are two rows.




Way too much fun :cool: .

I'm hoping for 8 bunches of MATURE, ripe bananas next year. We'll see...

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Frank,

aren't you worried about any animals destroying anything?.. like rodents?

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Not really. They won't eat 'em all :ha: !! I've never had a problem with animals eating the first thing that I've put under the house. But then again, I've never put anything under THIS house until now. I'm more worried about these mid-70 degree days we've been having. This happened to me last year too, with warm temps coming as soon as I dig the nanners. Didn't affect them at all last year though, and it looks like it'll be cooling down by the weekend.

Guess I could place a few mouse traps down there to see if there are any around.

Oh...did I forget to mention that my girlfriend has 6 cats :D ?

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Excellent work bigdog. Was just wondering what zone do you live in? Is it necessary to actually take them out of the ground each year if you live in an area where you won't get a frost? The pics are worth a 1000 words. How does one know when the banana is going to fruit? I have one goldfinger that is about 4 feet tall and I have it inside for the winter and it is still growing like a weed. Any advice on this? It has just sprung up a 2nd pup. When do I remove the pups and let them grow on their own? Thanks again.

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

No frost = No Dig - zone 9 and up fruit in ground with no to minimal protection.

The pup issue has been discussed many a time.

Size of pseudostem (trunk) to approximate fruit time and "paddle leaf" tells it is coming now. :eek:

Mike

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

I live in zone 7, Nashville, TN. I'm moving to zone 7, Knoxville, TN. If you live in an area where you don't get frost, or very little frost, then it isn't necessary to dig them up. The only way to get fruit in my climate is to dig them up.

You don't really know exactly when a plant is going to bloom. You will see a short leaf, or "paddle leaf", emerge right before the bloom. My Tall Orinocos have bloomed at 7 1/2 feet-8+feet, and I have one that is 9 feet tall that hasn't bloomed yet. A good website that shows approximate blooming heights for different varieties is webebananas.com.


You don't have to remove pups, but if you want to, wait until they are over a foot tall at least. Search this forum and Gardenweb for more info on this.

Thanks!

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Sheesh, Mike, you beat me to it! :ha:

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

hi to you all, i'm new to this site, today!!

after reading all that was said on this issue i have put my collection, away for the winter,

basement, cool around 55 deg, not to dry in pots, and dark! have i missed anything?

i have had them for 8 years, but this year mites ate them up faster than i could care for them, two weeks distroyed , so after reading here this may be a good option this year

time will tell, thanks for all the good reading also

jws

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Nice job!

Though it makes me feel so fortunate to be in southern florida :D

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

I just wanted to thank everybody for the response that I've received to this thread. I have had requests from people to post this thread on their own websites, others have shared this thread with their plant clubs, some have PM'ed me thanking me for posting the information...the list goes on and on. I receive about an email or PM every couple of weeks about this thread still, and it was made last November. I want to state that most of what I've learned about storing bananas and growing them in my zone, has been learned from others. Much of it has been adapted to my own needs in zone 7, my small crawl space, etc. It is still an ongoing process, and I learn more every year from growing bananas. It is probably the single-most rewarding plant that I've ever grown! To be able to harvest fresh bananas grown in my own backyard for the past several years has been nothing short of awesome, every time it happens, no matter how small the bunch size (and they are SMALL this year!).

So I was looking at the number of views of this thread, and it was 2,521 at the time of this post. Wow :02: ! I'm glad that people have been able to learn from it, and maybe one day I should write a book about my experiences. What do you think?

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

DEFINATELY, you should write a book. And when you do, I got dibs on a copy, okay?

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Heh - I can't help but point to this thread everytime winterizing nanners comes up on the various groups I'm on. I hope it remains in the archives for quite some time. Put me down for that book too - autographed, por favor. Make it a field book with a ring binder too so we can take it out to the trees for comparison and whatnot. :)

Be well,
Mike

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Bigdog,

Tell us about your successes.... How did the bananas do under the house?

Bobby

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Most of them did just fine. All of the Orinocos, Brazilian, musella lasiocarpa, musa itinerans, and Ice Cream stored great, and are growing like mad right now. Orinoco is still the best, however. Raja Puri and Sweetheart had quite a bit of mush on the outer layers, but came back ok. The big loser was musa 'Royal Red'. The entire pseudostem rotted back to the corm, and then the corm rotted when I planted it out. I have pics of my bananas on another post, Bobby, HERE. All of the ones in the big garden were under the house last winter, with 2 exceptions. Three have fruit hanging on them, and they will have time to mature before first frost.

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

:2559:HI joe, my name is nucci60 and I am the newest member of the forum. As soon as i browsed the forum i found your post. I want to thank you for the wealth of information and the time it took you to make this presentation. For someone like me ,with only two basjoos in the ground (well i live in zone 6, Ma., and can;t put much else in the ground) it was very inspiring. the part that shocked me was the weight of the pseudostems. Are they much lighter in spring as they dry out.?

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

frank,

I thought you were also growing M. Intinerans?

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

nucci60, my name is Frank (not Joe). Glad you enjoyed the post! To answer your question: No, the pseudostems do not lose much weight at all come Spring. This is because they don't dry out appreciably. The orinocos don't anyway. Musa basjoo dried out considerably though. Not all bananas respond the same being stored dormant. Some lose almost no pseudostem to dessication, some lose all pseudostem, and all ranges in between.

Jeff, I am growing musa itinerans still. Check a few posts up, and you will see I listed it there.

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Frank, one more question. Do you have to support the larger pseudostems when they go back in the ground while thry are putting out new roots?

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

BIGD,

Be glad you're not growing SABA! I had some blow over last year in hurricane Wilma and nearly broke my back righting them. :0493:

I couldn't imaging hauling off all the pseudostems every year.

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

:baloonnaner: Hiya Bigdog,
You really lifted my spirits by mentioning that you are able to get edible fruit from your own plants ...........................
~ because ~~~
by next Spring we will almost be neighbors .

Wheeeeeeeee :woohoonaner:

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Franks's bananas on their way to storage -----> :0519:

~Joe

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Nucci, I haven't supported the pseudostems going back into the ground in the Spring one time yet. I fill the planting hole with all sorts of great organic matter, and some slow release Osmocote. Then, I pack some of the native clay around the base of the plant. Haven't had one knocked over yet, but I imagine that I've gotten lucky also. I have read, and will try it this year, that where bananas are commercially grown, they fruit earlier and produce bigger bunches if the plant is planted deeper in the hole. Of course, that is in tropical areas, where the soil doesn't ever get cold. I've always planted my bananas with the corm just a few inches below the surface. I am going to plant some quite a bit deeper this Spring and see what happens. Looks like I'll have a bunch of fruiting-sized pseudostems again next year, so I have a few to experiment with. I'm also going to use black plastic to warm up the soil in the Spring. We need to take advantage of any and all tricks to help us get fruit as early as possible here in zone 7. I just hope I don't get any real late bloomers this year, but i probably will. One is pushing a bloom out now, as a matter of fact. Wasted bananas! :2169:

Jeff, I'm sure I'll get tired of the routine someday. It's still fun though right now, and I have a healthy back, so I'll keep doing it. I really would like a house with a full-sized basement, and my next house will have to have that! Sure would make life a lot easier. I'm not growing Saba, but I did add Kandrian this year. It's still a relatively small plant, but I've seen full-sized pseudostems...HUGE! Not quite as big as Saba, but they are quite large! Thankfully, I only have one small pseudostem of that variety to deal with this Fall.

Scooterbug, where are you moving to? Glad you enjoyed the post! I'll post some pics of ripe fruit in November.

Joe, that is hilarious! :2623: Thankfully, I will only have to haul them a few feet this Fall, not 180 miles! :nanerwaveytrain:

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

I have to say this post makes me a bit sad. I know once you cold weather people pull your plants it will only be me and a few others that will be posting here regularly. Summer sure is fun on this message board. I've really enjoyed seeing all you Banana nuts hard work pay of with nice plants and fruit. Don't be a stranger this winter! :nanadrink:

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

bigdog, We are hunting for property in the Maryville area but not in town of course :ha: :ha: :ha:

I'm on my way down in 2 weeks to look around again ;-)

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Hey all. Sorry to hear you have to put up your bananas for the winter.

There is something you can do for an early jump on planting. I use black plastic to keep the weeds down and I just plant thru it.

I noticed that it also did a wonderful job of warming the soil in early spring so I could get my peppers and 'maters in the ground sooner.

I figure you zone map challenged could warm your soil and maybe tent or at the least block cold winds from your nanners to get more 'ground time' for flowers and fruit.

Just an idea...

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

What do you do with the ones with fruit? Just the same, or some special care?

Gard