hondoharry

As I said they're like bananas on steroids. On closer examination the stalks are about 7 - 8 meters tall where the fruit stem comes out.

The first pic is fruit at 84 days.

The 2nd pic is fruit at 131 days. The top hand should start splitting or turning yellow in a week or so when I'll score the stalk and let it hang down in reaching distance. That is generally around 4 1/2 months from when I first see the flower budding out. Then I cut off hands as they turn yellow. As soon as any fingers get yellow the birds are all over them. They always manage to get a few fingers that turn yellow on a hand overnight. There's plenty to go around.

The 3rd pic shows a local variety apple banana on the left and the FHIA to the right to show the height difference. In the foreground is a young pear apple tree.

The 4th shows a base over a foot in diameter. It has fruit at 120 days.

When the fruit is bright yellow it's still starchy. You have to wait till it starts spotting brown. It makes a great apple pie or cobbler with brown sugar and cinnamon.

I bought the empty lot next door and turned it into a garden with fruit trees on the far side, a line of bananas in the middle and a neem shaded family area on the near side. I had planted the neems several years before I bought the lot. After seeing this one monstrous banana family of FHIA-26 at one end of the line I replaced other short sweet varieties with FHIA-26 to create a privacy screen from a new apartment building next door. It's coming along very well. The line now has 5 FHIA-26 families, 2 local apple bananas and one tall variety plantain. A few remaining short bananas are struggling for sunlight a midst their taller growing neighbors.