Kostas

Hi again Olga,

I am Greek and born and raised in Greece(thus my native language is Greek but i also know English very well) but have travelled to many countries,including most of Europe(unfortunately not Holland yet!) and small part of US(Of course my favorite place from all my travels so far is Central and Southern Florida and Keys. But for swimming,beaches and diving,its difficult to rival Greece!).
I dont know Volos's climate much,nor its zone. Basically,your zone is determined by the usual minimum temperatures you see in winter and the record lows of your area. How cold did it get this winter and what are the minimum temperatures the places you want to grow bananas at,experience most winter and what during the worst winters? Knowing these,we could better help you select cultivars that will have higher chances of fruiting well under your conditions but as Tony said and i fully agree with him,growing bananas for food in zone 9(9a at least) is a hit and miss project that depends a lot on your climate and microclimate as well as each individual winter and what damage it causes to the pseudostems as well as the weather during the growing season and the timing of flowering as you can only get ripe bananas if the plant flowers till August or early September at most i think and you also dont want it to flower before having at leaf some leafs on it,so this give you a narrow window of June to August for flowering. The odds for that are not that good but it does is doable and worth it as a side project but not for relying on it for food production. It is doable though with good planning and pup selecting to increase your chances for getting the flower when it has time to grow and mature the fruits and after a few years when you will have mature clumps and some more experience with bananas,your mats will be able to give you fruits annually,1-2 bunches annually from each banana mat is something you could work onto and could get but there are also a lot of things that can go wrong in the meantime like the growing point of one or more of the pseudostems failing to start growing after winter or rotting,and others. The higher your minimum temperatures,the better your chances and the easier it is. For example,in zone 9b you dont have to worry about pseudostem damage and thus you dont have to worry about protection. In zone 9a,the hardy ones usually do ok unprotected but if the winter is unusually bad,they may have problems. The reason we care about pseudostems is that each pseudostem needs to overwinter,in most cases for 2 winters,before it flowers as the growing season is not long enough to allow it to grow to maturity in just 1 growing season in our latitude and zone.

For all the above reasons,i dont think that growing bananas will help you accomplish your goals of feeding that family or having extra fruit for the tem anytime soon. In the future maybe,its doable, but not in the near future as if you plant a banana now,it will fruit on its 3rd growing season,at the end of the second at soonest(but you dont want that anyway as the bananas wouldnt mature). If its in a good location,with sun,warmth and water and the mat is strong,from the first fruiting on,you could be getting flowers every year and have short term fruit abundance every time a bunch matures.

All that said however,we dont know what your minimum temperatures yet and you may even have a good enough climate that approaches zone 10 and be able to grow bananas easier and more reliably. In any case however,you do should be able to grow bananas,they just will not help you in achieving your goals in the short term.

As Illia already said,Mahoi is a poor choice as its not very cold hardy and it will not produce a double bunch when potted unless in a huge pot as it needs to build a strong mat before doing that. Even though relatively short,they still outgrow the ceiling with their height plus pot height so they may need cutting back to remain shorter or to lean out of the balcony maybe. Potted outdoor bananas are even slower and even more difficult to grow as they are very easy to rot in cool weather,so basically the whole of winter...In the ground they dont rot easily once established.

Even though bananas can stand some drought,others little more,others little less,they barely grow at all during drought and as our summer is dry,they will barely grow the whole summer. So that is not an option at all if you want fruit. Hot is good,they just need lots of watering to go along with hot weather such as during summer unless you have very shallow water table,as i do in Pyrgos! You wont believe how fast they grow in hot weather when well watered and fertilized! You can almost watch them grow!

For land,farmland outside of major cities is relatively cheap,much cheaper than land or house prices in cities,so i would look there.

I will let you know when i have any pups available then,but it may be a while. Thank you very much for the seed offer,i appreciate! I have more seeds and seedlings than i could ever hope to fit in my garden but if its something very special,i may try it!!!! Tobacco is a host for various harmful plant viruses that can affect other plants of mine so i cant grow it.

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''To try,is to risk failure......To not try,is to guarantee it''