Taylor

I would hate to see someone unworthy end up with this Banana!!! Get it while it lasts, LAST ONE OF THE SEASON!!! Whoever gets it, let me know how it does! Equal hardiness as Basjoo??? I don't think so. But who knows, still a GREAT plant.

http://cgi.ebay.com/California-Gold-...QQcmdZViewItem

__________________
Taylor

Update:
23 California Gold fruit expected by Thanksgiving!
Harvested!

Frankallen

Why would you say that?? I really don't think they say it's as cold hardy as a Basjoo?...."Unworthy" .....I don't understand what you mean by that? How many different Varieties of Bananas have you Raised?


Frank

Taylor

Not unworthy of having it, just not able to take care of it. I want it to be taken care of (sounds so stupid). I think all the people on Bananas.org are worthy, definately! But me, I don't know...I don't have any space to put it during the winter, or I might overwater, butall yall experts would have space, and probably would do great with the CG. On the page, it says has equal hardiness as the Basjoo .... PLMK what you think about that statement.

__________________
Taylor

Update:
23 California Gold fruit expected by Thanksgiving!
Harvested!

mikevan

Hmmm, let me reword this as the previous attempt I made came across as a bit rude. I'm a skeptic when it comes to undocumented claims - too many people are taken advantage of and lose a lot of money in hopes of finding their personal holy grail - in this case a cold hardy nanner - and the internet just magnifies that dilemna . The only documentation on CG that I've been able to find, even here: http://webebananas.com/bvar-C-D.html - is basically the seller's words. Except, of course, for other CG owners here on the forum kindly piping in with personal experiences with it, which indicates that it does have a decent level of cold hardiness - tho for Zone 8, jury is still out unless someone from that zone would please mention their experience with this nanner. So, lack of documentation excepting sales pitch and conflicting kinda threw a wrench in the works for me and raised a red flag, especially since it's such an obscure nanner. Indeed, "Texas Star" also claims extraordinary stem hardiness here in Texas - yet everyone I talked to that owned one indicated that it dies down to the ground every winter, contradicting the claim. So, on the internet, it pays to take things with a big grain of salt...

Nevetheless, Hass avocado's was a sport discovered by a man, as was the original sweet nanner which was a sport from a plantain field south of the border, IIRC. So, it's not unreasonable for this too to be a sport off a known cultivar that's a bit hardier and this fella got lucky and got the last one before the source dried up (I wonder how many others are out there growing). It's just that on face value, it meets the criteria of caution for me. Now that I've seen testamony from others who have purchased this nanner and experienced it's cold hardiness, that caution is a bit... lessened. As a Zone 8 resident, I'd like to hear from others in my zone about their experiences with this nanner vs perhaps the likes of orinoco, rajapuri and other cold resistant nanners... More hardiness means less effort for protecting in this zone, which here is always a win-win scenario and worth the $30+ or so... His is growing in a very protected area tho - which makes me wonder what micro-climates I can create here to increase some of my nanner's hardiness. I'm impressed by his macadamia nut tree!!!! Mine doesn't like the Texas heat so much, unfortunately, but now that it's cooling down there's finally more growth coming out.

Cheers,
Mike

JoeReal

I have basjoo and California Gold growing in pots and left them outside for the winter about three years ago. Potted plants are more susceptible to cold than when planted inground. Musa Basjoo died to the ground level and never came back while California Gold's stem remained intact and was among the first ones to sprout leaves during the late winter. Non-scientific tests. I bought about 85 known cultivars of bananas, spent around $2000 to collect them all, and when my wife booted me out of the third car garage, I left them all out in the cold winter, still potted. Only 24 plants survived that single non-replicated episode of non-scientific experiment. So without much ado, here's the result of my $2,000.00 worth of information:

Here's the listing of cold hardy bananas at their pseudostem during the winter. Arranged from the most reliable producer or cold hardiest to the milder ones, but all should be cold hardy at their pseudostems in most winters in zone 9. WARNING: Your mileage could vary depending on your microclimate arrangement in your yard.

•California Gold
•Thousand Fingers
•Monkey Fingers
•Orinoco
•Brazilian
•Golden Rhinohorn
•Dwarf Orinoco
•Dwarf Brazilian
•Misi Luki
•Mysore
•Namwah
•Rajah Puri (best tasting but often chokes)

•Manzano
•Ice Cream
•Gold Finger
•Dwarf Namwah
•Sweetheart (FHIA 3, best tasting cavendish, cold hadiest among the cavendish types)
•Namwah Pearl
•Praying Hands
•Saba
•Cardaba
•Williams
•Belle
•Valery

Taylor

Woah JoeReal,
That is VERY impressive. Ever gotten any fruit from CG? If so, was it as good as they claim?

__________________
Taylor

Update:
23 California Gold fruit expected by Thanksgiving!
Harvested!

JoeReal

Not one is as good as the cold sensitive Lakatan banana. But California Gold tasted better than Orinoco when eaten with the same skin peel color. The Claifornia Gold seems to be a hybrid of Senorita and Saba when it comes to taste but less sweeter and firmer than an overripe saba, a property that I like. Raja Puri tasted a lot better than CG, but that's just my taste buds.

I have 1.5 gallons of California Gold Wine Sherry aging. I can already see that it will be one awesome sherry wine. After all the filtering perhaps in two more months, I should net out about 4 bottles of California Gold Sherry wine.

Frankallen

Thanks JOE!! Very good Information!! I am still a Beginner Myself and love to read about Information by people like youself, who have "Real" experience raising our favorite Fruit!!

T H A N K S !!!

Frank

mikevan

Cool. I have most of those, but would not dream of leaving them unprotected here in Zone 8. Tho surplus pups may be sacrificed just for curiosity's sake... I have an unidentified - perhaps a mysore - that took a 20F freeze in the greenhouse over the winter when the heater failed with nothing more than browned leaves. Lost all my vanilla to that failure tho my taro, cacao and coffee survived with little damage too, surprisingly. All free water was a solid block of ice in there that morning - I was horrified. But in the greenhouse you have a bit of latitude. A whole lot, as it turns out. Last year the same nanner resided in an unheated leanto greenhouse down in a pit that I'm converting into another greenhouse and it survived rather well down there too - just some leaf-edge damage, tho the winter was rather mild. I'm reticent about leaving it outside tho - greenhouses really add a lot to a plant's survivability by keeping air-flow down and humidity up...

And dang! That's horrible about all those nanners you lost! I hope you're able to regain your collection!

Be well,
Mike

GATrops

Hi Joe- That is a great list and excellent information.

Thanks for sharing,

Richard

tlturbo

Hey Joe,

I'm a wine and port lover and never heard about making sherry from bananas. E-mail me if you would wiith some more info unless you want to go into it on here.

Terry

MediaHound

Once again, Joe comes through with some excellent info!
Thanks for posting the list!

MediaHound

Joe posted some banana wine recipies here
http://www.bananas.org/forumdisplay.php?f=6
they're on page 2 at the moment

jearl

Interesting post.... Especially since I am the one selling the CalGold on ebay.
I have a couple more plants doing some late summer pupping so I have 2 more than originally thought.
First let me echo what Joe Real reported... CalGold may not be the best tasting banana out there it... is in my opinion better than store bought bananas.... but then again the best tasting bananas always die here in my zone 9 climate. So a good tasting banana that does well...is better than an excellent tasting banana that dies :P.
The fact that I am regularly growing bananas for fruit production around here is in its self testament to its hardiness. I , like Joe tend to buy and try most any banana that claims to be hardy.... I also wasted about $2000 bucks on those trials and mostly errors. CalGold still outgrows and produces all of them.... even on those years where are winters are more like zone 8.... which seem to be happening more and more lately.
The truth be known... I don't know the precise hereditary of this banana. It's fruit is generally angular ( but for some reason... not always ) and the tree is smaller than most bananas... though this can vary depending on the health of the plant and growing conditions. I once fruited one at only 4 ft .... some are as tall as 8 ft of trunk.... most are 6 to 7ft of trunk height.

Anyway... In case anyone is interested... I have another for sale on ebay.

Jeff

ebay auction is at... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MESE%3AIT&rd=1

MediaHound

Welcome to the board, Jeff!

JoeReal

Terry,

The pre-fermentation steps are the same as making regular banana wine, but then there is a major difference when it comes to making sherry wine, but let me tell you what I did.

Basically, I have the 6 gallon fermentation bucket, placed about 8 lbs of California Gold (combined from Mike [bananavilla] and my own CG fruits), then enough water to make 2.5 gallons, then 6 lbs of white sugar.

Heat the sugar to near boling with 1 gallon water, 2 tsp citric acid, and pour over peeled and crushed California Gold bananas, wait 10 minutes and pour cool water to make total of 2.5 gallons. When temp has cooled down to 100 deg F or less, add pectic enzyme. When broth cools down to 90 deg F and less, then add the Flor Sherry yeast. cover the bucket and wait overnight.

I then used an aquarium pump to blow tiny bubbles through a submerged stainless steel bubbler. the air is filtered as it comes out of the air pump, and is scrubbed by bubbling through a vodka solution. this is called the submerged method of making sherry wine. I bubble just about 0.2 liters of air per minute through the solution for one week. Of course, I used Sherry Flor yeast, and it makes very good aroma. After that, I transferred everything to glass gallon jugs and seal an airlock. The rest of the steps are done like you would for other wines.

Mike Lee

MikeVan in Texas,

You've piqued my curiosity! What kind of protection do you give your bananas in Zone 8? Are there other folks growing in Zone 9a or 9b without any protection?

I have the following that I've planted out this year:

Manzano, Goldfinger, Sweetheart, Raja Puri, Dwarf Orinoco, Dwarf Namwah, Misi Luki. Most are about 5 - 6 ft. tall and I've gotten rather attached to them! I originally was planning to dig them all up and cover with straw inside a tarp outside in the shade. While I'd rather leave them in the ground, I wouldn't want to lose any either.

Our winter temperatures typically get down to 24 deg for about a week in Feb. Once the sun comes out, it'll quickly rise into the low 40's. Last year, it hit 21 deg one morning.

It's true that at Joe's house, seeing is believing, but his situation is a little different than mine. He's got a some overhead cover with his incredible jungle of citrus. Some of his plants are against his house. Mine are out in the open at the bottom of a large hill (but as high up as our property permits).

Any suggestions?

__________________
Mike Lee
Forestville, CA Zone 9

mikevan

Til this year, all I grew were a couple of unidentified dwarfs (or regular nanners that were just stunted by the containers) that resided in my greenhouse quite amicably. They did get a bit big and was a little bit of a squeeze but they didn't seem to mind tho sometimes the edges of their leaves would brown on me during nights that froze the condensation on the glazing.

This season I've gained quite a few more nanners - many that will get pretty tall like the Saba, Brazilian and Orinoco, so this will be the last nanner-greenhouse year for me, excepting for dwarfs and backup pups. I'm even raising the greenhouse up by 4' for a larger nanner of mine - all are still containerized. But I can only go so tall!

This winter I'll be preparing their bed using sheet composting methods. Next Spring, all my babies are going in the ground - even the dwarfs. I'll keep backup pups and dwarfs in the greenhouse after that but I'm leaning to wrapping my trees with bubble-wrap and burlap over the winter. Shorter ones may make use of the hay insulating