bigdog

Way too late for mature fruit here in zone 7, with our first frost due any day now. I've entertained the idea of erecting some sort of temporary PVC greenhouse over it, and heating it, but would that really work? Guess if I could keep it from going below freezing it would at least last through the winter, but would the bananas ever mature and be any good? Or is merely subsisting in cool temps not enough for it? I would think that it would require sufficient heat for the fruit to develop properly. 6 hands, and over 50 bananas, I was impressed anyway! Biggest bunch I've seen here. Now, if I could just time it a little better so I can get a July bloom!

Randy4ut

Man, what a pity Frank... I guess that is what we should expect living where we do, huh? Still nice to see it set fruit. Looks like you are getting a head start on trimming your other nanners in the background. I have yet to cut mine, I guess I am just prolonging the inevitable. Good job on the fruit anyway...

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island cassie

Heart-wrenching sight especially as you now have to wait until spring/early summer to plant out again - pain in the b..!

Cassie

bigdog

Yeah, we were supposed to get a frost last night, so I dug my three biggest ones and kept three leaves on each of them. I also did my annual banana-leaf-massacre, which is actually pretty fun, lol. Something about heading out into the garden with a butcher knife with destruction as you number-one goal just feels good! Frost never materialized on plants, but got some on windshields and rooftops. 10-day forecast looks pretty good too, so maybe I'll have bananas into November this year!

There is a trick to timing these buggers to flower at just the right time, but it's very tricky. You have to figure out at what height they will bloom first. For my Tall Orinocos, they bloom at between 7-10 feet, but usually around 8-9. So, if I start with a full-sized corm from a plant that bloomed the previous year, and a pup about with about a foot or a little more of pseudostem still attached to that corm, it will be very close to blooming size by late October. Doesn't always work, which is why I have to plant so many. If I can get my Dwarf Orinocos on this cycle, I'll completely phase out the Talls. No sense in digging up something that weighs over twice as much and produces about half the fruit as the dwarfs if your goal is fruit only. You can see there are two pups attached to that corm, a little difference in sizes. Hopefully, one of them will be close to blooming size (without blooming) by next October, and send it out by the end of July. Hopefully...

On the plus side, my Cal. Gold is really close to blooming size, and I'm going to push it hard next spring. I left three full-sized leaves on it in hopes that they will still be green next year.

Paul7b

I know how ya feel Frank, I wish I could get them fruiting in July also, we would have some nice nanners to enjoy. We had one fruit the last week in August and another the first week in Sept. We have some pretty good stock for next year so we will keep our fingers crossed.

chong

So why not put a 6' x 6' x whatever height it needs to be, Visqueen is cheap. I would, especially since you have a great start already.. A 1250 watt heater only costs $20, plus a T'stat for $13 would be a great trade-off for a sampling of the fruit of your plant. And you can use it again next year and the the year after, etc. I think the small heater can keep it around 65F - 70F in a small space like that. That low temps may slow down the growth but it would certainly not kill the plant. Come springtime, keep the cover until the temps go over 70F outside. That's what I would do.

By the way, great job!