Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Wow, Frank!!! You are one dedicated banana grower! Great pics and narrative. Thanks for sharing!

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Let me begin by saying I can't believe you dig up that entire plantation every year. It is astonishing how well that seems to be working for you.

Second, I came to the board to find out how deep I would have to dig to move my banana with a 6' pseudostem and 3 pups, and found it on the first thread I read! What a great resource.

Thanks

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Those pictures are so classic!

"Have 'nanners, will travel." :ha:

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Your new neighbors are in for a bit of a surprise come spring time! ;)

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Yeah...the neighbors aren't even going to see it coming :D .

Ok, here is the rest of the thread that I should've included into the original post. Here is the crawl space door that they ALL went into.



And here is a few shots of the bananas stored under the house. Don't ask me how many there are...I don't know!




You can see that there are two rows.




Way too much fun :cool: .

I'm hoping for 8 bunches of MATURE, ripe bananas next year. We'll see...

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Frank,

aren't you worried about any animals destroying anything?.. like rodents?

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Not really. They won't eat 'em all :ha: !! I've never had a problem with animals eating the first thing that I've put under the house. But then again, I've never put anything under THIS house until now. I'm more worried about these mid-70 degree days we've been having. This happened to me last year too, with warm temps coming as soon as I dig the nanners. Didn't affect them at all last year though, and it looks like it'll be cooling down by the weekend.

Guess I could place a few mouse traps down there to see if there are any around.

Oh...did I forget to mention that my girlfriend has 6 cats :D ?

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Excellent work bigdog. Was just wondering what zone do you live in? Is it necessary to actually take them out of the ground each year if you live in an area where you won't get a frost? The pics are worth a 1000 words. How does one know when the banana is going to fruit? I have one goldfinger that is about 4 feet tall and I have it inside for the winter and it is still growing like a weed. Any advice on this? It has just sprung up a 2nd pup. When do I remove the pups and let them grow on their own? Thanks again.

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

No frost = No Dig - zone 9 and up fruit in ground with no to minimal protection.

The pup issue has been discussed many a time.

Size of pseudostem (trunk) to approximate fruit time and "paddle leaf" tells it is coming now. :eek:

Mike

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

I live in zone 7, Nashville, TN. I'm moving to zone 7, Knoxville, TN. If you live in an area where you don't get frost, or very little frost, then it isn't necessary to dig them up. The only way to get fruit in my climate is to dig them up.

You don't really know exactly when a plant is going to bloom. You will see a short leaf, or "paddle leaf", emerge right before the bloom. My Tall Orinocos have bloomed at 7 1/2 feet-8+feet, and I have one that is 9 feet tall that hasn't bloomed yet. A good website that shows approximate blooming heights for different varieties is webebananas.com.


You don't have to remove pups, but if you want to, wait until they are over a foot tall at least. Search this forum and Gardenweb for more info on this.

Thanks!

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Sheesh, Mike, you beat me to it! :ha:

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

hi to you all, i'm new to this site, today!!

after reading all that was said on this issue i have put my collection, away for the winter,

basement, cool around 55 deg, not to dry in pots, and dark! have i missed anything?

i have had them for 8 years, but this year mites ate them up faster than i could care for them, two weeks distroyed , so after reading here this may be a good option this year

time will tell, thanks for all the good reading also

jws

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Nice job!

Though it makes me feel so fortunate to be in southern florida :D

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

I just wanted to thank everybody for the response that I've received to this thread. I have had requests from people to post this thread on their own websites, others have shared this thread with their plant clubs, some have PM'ed me thanking me for posting the information...the list goes on and on. I receive about an email or PM every couple of weeks about this thread still, and it was made last November. I want to state that most of what I've learned about storing bananas and growing them in my zone, has been learned from others. Much of it has been adapted to my own needs in zone 7, my small crawl space, etc. It is still an ongoing process, and I learn more every year from growing bananas. It is probably the single-most rewarding plant that I've ever grown! To be able to harvest fresh bananas grown in my own backyard for the past several years has been nothing short of awesome, every time it happens, no matter how small the bunch size (and they are SMALL this year!).

So I was looking at the number of views of this thread, and it was 2,521 at the time of this post. Wow :02: ! I'm glad that people have been able to learn from it, and maybe one day I should write a book about my experiences. What do you think?

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

DEFINATELY, you should write a book. And when you do, I got dibs on a copy, okay?

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Heh - I can't help but point to this thread everytime winterizing nanners comes up on the various groups I'm on. I hope it remains in the archives for quite some time. Put me down for that book too - autographed, por favor. Make it a field book with a ring binder too so we can take it out to the trees for comparison and whatnot. :)

Be well,
Mike

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Bigdog,

Tell us about your successes.... How did the bananas do under the house?

Bobby

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Most of them did just fine. All of the Orinocos, Brazilian, musella lasiocarpa, musa itinerans, and Ice Cream stored great, and are growing like mad right now. Orinoco is still the best, however. Raja Puri and Sweetheart had quite a bit of mush on the outer layers, but came back ok. The big loser was musa 'Royal Red'. The entire pseudostem rotted back to the corm, and then the corm rotted when I planted it out. I have pics of my bananas on another post, Bobby, HERE. All of the ones in the big garden were under the house last winter, with 2 exceptions. Three have fruit hanging on them, and they will have time to mature before first frost.

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

:2559:HI joe, my name is nucci60 and I am the newest member of the forum. As soon as i browsed the forum i found your post. I want to thank you for the wealth of information and the time it took you to make this presentation. For someone like me ,with only two basjoos in the ground (well i live in zone 6, Ma., and can;t put much else in the ground) it was very inspiring. the part that shocked me was the weight of the pseudostems. Are they much lighter in spring as they dry out.?

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

frank,

I thought you were also growing M. Intinerans?