William LeGro

My wife and I have devoured our first crop of bananas - Hawaiian apple bananas from a plant I got from Momoese (mahalo nui loa forever Momoese!). I posted photos of the stalk - took a long time to mature, but on another site I read this can happen if the plant flowers in winter, which it did. Produced a few dozen - maybe 3 dozen at most were eatable size, though they never got any bigger than shown in the photos - little things, 3-4", but my wife thought they were cute. And they tasted just like the ones I used to grow on Kaua`i - yum! Another couple dozen remained finger-size and I left them on the tree.

Watching them ripen and then eating them made me homesick, kinda. But also what a treat - hadn't had any since our last trip there in May-June.

Another Hawaiian apple plant has a stalk about two months along, I think (I've got to start documenting these things!), and there are several keiki of various sizes coming up all around it. And the Namwah (sp?) stalk is also coming along, though it's up so high I'm not sure how I'm going to get it down. That plant was leaning badly, so I tied a rope around it and anchored it to a hardwood tree about 30 feet away - straightened it up considerably but it's still leaning. I'm a little concerned about strangling the plant - the noose is tight - but so far no sign of impairment.

And of course I cut down and hauled away my first banana tree in California - the "trunk" never got much taller than me (6'), so I just sawed it into chunks where it stood, down to 2" from the ground, and lugged it up 4 flights of stairs to the street. That day we were the only people in the neighborhood with huge banana leaves sticking out of our green bin.

I know just about everybody here has far more experience than I growing and eating their own bananas. But this is my first time, so it's a great day for me.

This is one time I'm actually stoked to be living in Los Angeles.I feel a bit unpatriotic growing bananas in a drought - a desert drought no less - but then we have no lawn, so I'm rationalizing. I keep wondering if the water cops/neighborhood snoops are going to see them sticking up and...well, we won't go there.

We're heading back to Kaua`i in a couple of weeks, will be there a month. I was planning to plant some bananas on our land and figure out how to protect them from pigs when we're not there - maybe just plant them and whatever happens, happens. But then I may not be able to plant anything at all - El Nino is sending hurricane after hurricane after hurricane towards the Islands. None have hit yet, but the weather has been sweltering and associated rains have been very heavy, and the valley section I'm planning for bananas could become a creek.

blah-blah-blah - Well, you can gauge my interest and excitement by how much I ramble on about growing bananas and especially being able to eat Hawaiian apple bananas in California. (I have a very high bar for excitement - too jaded and cynical with age, I guess - I mean, I very rarely use emoticons) I want to thank Momoese for the plants and everybody here for suggestions and advice and encouragement.

JP

Congrats! We want pics!