sandylbuck

Hey Kevin,

I can appreciate what you are trying to do. I live in PA and have been growing bananas for a few years now. I have had 4 plants fruit and last year I was able to harvest a bunch of Saba. I keep my plants in very large plastic planters that I purchased at Lowes and I bring them into my house (obviously with help) in the fall. While I do put many of my plants under an expensive grow light in a room, the plants that are taller than my 8 foot ceilings stay in the foyer and I use clamp lights and grow lightbulbs to get them through the winter and it seems to work.

If your goal is having a plant that fruits so that you can actually eat the fruit (rather than just watch the flower produce bananas) you'll probably need to continue to fertilize the plant through the winter months. Unfortunately I learned this the hard way. I just lost two bunches of bananas. I could be wrong but my thought is that the plants just weren't nourished enough (sturdy enough) to support the bunch (no visual issues to plant or bunch). I know this isn't the ideal scenario, but living in zone 7 we can't really predict how harsh the winters will be. If you decide to plant them in the ground I would suggest keeping a small pup or two to bring in over the winter months just incase we have a wicked winter. Also, last year I planted all of my large plants in the ground, dug them up in August so they could "recover from the shock of being dug up" and took them in for the winter and most of the plants died although the pups lived. And while it was super exciting to watch the plants grow (and man, did they, so fast I swear I could actually see it happening) it was disappointed to watch everything come to a screeching halt when I uprooted them (and they were in garden boxes with very good dirt). Good luck and I hope you keep us all posted. This forum is invaluable and the information from the bunch is always extremely helpful!