libracats

Hi, I have a banana bunch that has been growing since dec. of last year and the bananas are still rather small, imo. Since moving to this house last march this is the second banana bunch to appear from my then 2 stalks. I had to cut the first one's stalk completely down and lost the bananas because it basically died and the bananas never grew. The second however is doing a bit better. the stalk doesn't make any new leaves anymore and the last two on the stalk are not very healthy looking but its hanging in there. This banana bunch has grown more than the last but the bananas are not nearly as big as some on my neighbors tree. I have no idea ho long it takes for bananas to grow. Seems like a long time. My main concern now is that the top 2 bananas on the bunch are now yellow. I cant reach them. The tree is very tall. Im trying to upload photos now, but its isn't working very well. If I need to cut the bunch down, can anyone give me some instructions please?
I need to get a handle on this as I have about 3 more stalks growing now and I assume they will eventually make bananas too. Id love to be able to have some success with this.
Oh I see one of the photos appeared here after all.

Attached Images

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venturabananas

The bunch is ready to be harvested or you can just harvest a hand at a time if you want to spend some time on a ladder. They aren't very well filled, but there's nothing you can do about that now. Probably you either need to water or fertilize more, or thin the mat -- or all of those.

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libracats

Thank you for your reply. What do you use to fertilize and what does "thin the mat" mean? I think I am watering them enough, but who knows. I have the sprinklers watering them 10 mins a day and I hand water about every other day as well.

venturabananas

Well, any kind of fertilizer is probably better than none. In general, for bananas you want something with a ratio of NPK (nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium) that is medium-low-high (i.e., the highest value should be for potassium). Personally, I use organic fertilizers only because they release nutrients more evenly than a massive pulse that many inorganics give you. If you soil is like most in So Cal, it is probably on the alkaline side, so using a fert. that is somewhat acidic would be good, too.

Thinning the mat is removing some stems from the clump of banana plants. A "mat" is a group of pseudostems ("trunks") that share a rhizome (corm). When there are many trunks on a single mat, they end up competing for light, nutrients, and water, which can decrease the size of the bananas and the number of bananas in each bunch.

If your soil is clay like mine, then 10 minutes of watering a day is probably enough.

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