Growing and Fruiting Bananas in the Carolinas and the Southeast
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- Опубліковано 22 сер 2024
- This video discusses my Dwarf Orinoco banana, which I am growing in a container. It has sent out a flower and is getting ready to fruit here in southeastern North Carolina.
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I grow banana trees here in north Carolina in the ground the leaves die in the winter. But they come back every year as long as you dont cut the tree down it will bear fruit
Will that apply to WNC (the fruit part)? I'm in Asheville zone 7a.
My neighbor is giving me bananas!🌞
can you tell me what type of banana trees you grow?
I never knew how bananas grew. Very interesting; it always amazes me the various ways that nature produces fruit. It is why I like gardening, to observe this.
They are incredible fruits. The banana plant itself is actually an herb that grows out of a rhizome. Once it fruits, the stem dies, and like the Hydra, usually when you cut the head off one, 2 or more grow back. They can quickly become invasive, almost bamboo-like (but not quite as bad). They're beastly plants and virtually nothing kills them except deep freezes and fusarium. Growing them this far north, though, there is little that will bother them.
Oh man that’s such a bummer. I would have loved to follow along and see the flower and how it grows and produces. The great news is you have more and can try again next year. All is not lost, what a great learning experience for you and in turn us. Thanks for sharing. Have a great day!
Yep, I’ll have plenty of time to try. I’m going to get a few opinions on bananas.org and see if anyone has ever overwintered a flower. It may be worth a try.
Definitely!!
Banana flower - edible, banana stem - edible. Chop the tree, toss the leaves, eat the flower and stem (not raw, look for recipes on both the stem and flower) and next year enjoy the little ones growing. Repeat if needed.
Really enjoyed this. Very informative. I'm fixing to do a practice on a banana tree in south carolina.
Thanks! I have an update and successfully fruited mine in ground last year: ua-cam.com/video/-CQdWn4hmmY/v-deo.html
I'm glad I came across this video. I got my banana shrubs from an old neighbor about 5 years ago. They said for me to just come over and dig up a few of the smaller plants and mine would grow as large as theirs. They were right! I took pictures of them just now in hopes of posting them here, but I don't know how. I came across your video because I was searching how to care for my plants during the winter. In the past, I would just cut off the dead leaves as they died and in the spring all the banana shrubs would come back thriving. However, this year will be different. I'm getting a new roof and new siding on and the builder says I need to cut down my banana shrubs because they are too close to the house and will interfere with their work. So now I'm planning on cutting them all down to the base, then I'll over the base with mulch and plastic while the workers step all over them. Personally, I think they will survive. The root system is very strong. But I do have more banana shrubs in the back of my house, just in case the ones in front don't survive. Let me know if you'd like to see pics of my banana shrubs.
As long as the plastic isn't there too long to suffocate the roots, they should come back. You may want to use tarps instead of plastic because tarps breathe. You don't want to deprive them of oxygen. If you want to post links, just search for an "image hosting website" like imgur.com or something similar. You can upload photos, they'll give you a link and you just post that link for people to click on.
How about a vertical tunnel greenhouse? A small bowl of vegetable oil or teal candles can help keep it warm until the fruit cycle is completed. I'm in south Florida, our rain and light cycles are the challenge, not so much temperature.
Outstanding job.
Thanks. Sometimes you roll the dice a little too late, but there are plenty more opportunities in the future.
100lb is less than the weight of my wife which i can pick up with one hand. That would easily fit inside your house so move it. I live in Auckland NZ which is USDA zone 10b but much cooler summers than the US but no frosts. I grow bananas and they never even go brown over winter here but take three years to produce the first bunch, but you will get a bunch every year after the first flower. Our main banana is called Misi Luki which is a cold hardy lady finger 4m tall.
John Velden most ceilings in the US are 8-9 feet. That plant would rub on many ceilings. It was well over 100 lbs. maybe twice that. It was incredibly difficult to move, and if you have steps into your house it would be impossible. Bananas that fruit drop a ton of debris as well. I would strongly advise against bringing a banana inside your home. It would create a mess and bring inside so many bugs, not to mention take up so much room.
Much of NZ is frost-free. I believe the coldest areas of NZ are Zone 8. 2/3 of the US is Zone 7 and below. NZ is one of the most temperate and mildest countries on Earth. The US is one of the coldest in the winter. We have really harsh winters here because of the Arctic air masses that travel south to us with no northern ocean to moderate the temps. Canada is basically tundra most of the year. Most of the US has a 180 day or shorter growing season and gets frosts and freezes half the year or more. Only something like 1-2% of the continental United States is frost-free (San Diego and Los Angeles most years but not all, Miami most years but not all, and Brownsville area of Texas most years but not all). The only truly frost-free areas all the time are the Florida Keys and Hawaii. It makes growing tropicals almost impossible for most, unfortunately.
I’ve always wanted to go to New Zealand. I’m going to Australia in a few months. That’ll get me close. If I can handle the flight without any issues I’ll try for a sale on airfare to NZ.
Plastic wrap the bucket and bottom half and have a friend help u move it inside ur home and let it keep fruiting!
Mines growing and has produced 4 leaves, it's the blue java banana i have
You do not have to dig them up, I live in Jacksonville NC my plant stay in the ground all year round. mind did flower last Oct with tiny bananas. Not big enough to eat, may bee one day.
I experimented with protection this past winter with great success. I am going to upload a video on it soon. I have one video I'm working on in front of it, then I'll get to it. I'm hoping I will have a banana fruit for me this season and mature...I hope.
Im In Jville as well. I have one a friend gave me, and a small Grand Naine(Chiquitta) I ordered. Im considering a small greenhouse. I have a few pineapples too. Just trying to keep them growing over winter. They seem to be picky about light. A buddy had some that fruited every year. He moved them to the end of his house, with less morning light and they dont fruit anymore.
What? How? I need to know!
I want to try this
all that noice in the background make's it sound like a battle field
I was one of the first people to build on this side of the subdivision. I was the 2nd house on the entire block. Homes were being built around mine for the next 2 years. What you hear are the new frames being hammered together. Luckily, the block is now complete and has been for about a year.
The grow bag is your problem (they stunt growth). I have used them before and they slow the growth especially the size you are using. If you plant a good size dwarf Orinoco out in early spring, with proper fertilizer and water it should flower by 1 July and fruit ready to harvest by mid October. I actually grow the full size Orinoco and want to switch to the dwarf because the time to fruit is significantly less. I had one in a grow bag that the wind blew over. When the tree hit the ground the whole flower cracked off. So if you are going to use grow bags use three bamboo poles and support the plant.
I agree this grow bag is significantly undersized. The whole bag is the corm; there isn’t much soil left. I don’t agree grow bags stunt growth. They are extremely porous, so you need to fertilize much more frequently than standard plastic containers because wash-out is extreme. Bananas love soluble potash, and this thing grew like a weed until the container became too small. Until then, it threw out one cigar leaf a week, which is pretty consistent with in-ground plantings. I was giving it a little fish emulsion and a handful of potash I would let dissolve in a gallon watering can almost weekly in the heat of the summer and WOW. Magic.
My tomatoes all grew ten feet tall in my grow bags this year. But they were appropriately sized. #20’s gave more than enough room for tomatoes, so I know it isn’t the bags in and of themselves. They just require more fertilizer due to wash-out.
The thing that really hurt me, I am convinced, was breaking off 2 pups and undersizing the bag. If the bag was much larger and I didn’t damage the corm by snapping off the pups I would have already eaten my bunch 😢
I may just trim all the leaves off but the center flag and bring it into my garage. The forecast is great for the next 2 weeks, which is making the situation tough. It is too warm for dormancy.
The Millennial Gardener yeah thats what i was referring to the size of bag. The whole operation is a trial by error kind of thing. I myself want to switch to the dwarf varieties as I know i can get a lot more fruit in a season. They sell a 9’ tent shaped green house on amazon. I used that with a small heater to keep my Orinoco alive during last winter here in Shreveport. I had two p-stems aprox 6’ tall in the make shift green house. I had to cut the leaves back significantly. It worked though. My trees flowered in early July. Those trees p-stems were 10’ at flower. Made me that if i had used dwarf varieties everything would have been easier and faster
@@TheChenny73 hmm, Shreveport is an 8b. I'm in an 8a, so this gives me hope that I can do it if you can. How often did you heat the greenhouse? It rarely drops below 20 degrees here, but we get 40-50 nights a year below freezing, so it would bleed me dry doing so. I am thinking about planting them in-ground, then before the first frost removing the leaves and wrapping the pseudostems in freeze cloth and incandescent lights. I wonder if that can protect the centers? I really want to try this without a heater, but we have a lot of nights in the low 20's here.
What gives me hope is that last year, the second week of February I stuck a little tomato seedling next to the house on the NORTH side under a palm tree. All I did was toss a flower pot over it some nights, and it never got frosted. It grew and gave me fruit. I feel like if I could do that with my old rental on the north side of the house, I can do this with my new home and a south or west-facing wall since they'll hold heat into the night.
Yeah, I only did this because I am not paying the electricity bill. I would dig them up and store in a cool, dark place that is just around 55 degrees (garage) if I had to pay for heat and was in 8A. www.bananas.org/f15/time-put-bananas-sleep-winter-310.html
I tried to protect one plant outside. It's tricky. Condensation likes to build under the protection and bananas rot easily especial when cold and wet. My trial was a disaster. The good thing was the roots survived and I actual have two 10' plants there now. These I am going to dig up and store in garage until spring. I am going to plant them at my Florida home in April.
Build a sunroom with a high roof and insulated back wall. You know that is going to happen!
I am working on a sunroom, but it won’t be for my bananas. They do fairly well here in-ground with winter protection. I think I can get a couple bunches this fall.
@@TheMillennialGardener I love living my tropical dreams through you! Have you watched videos on earthships where they grow bananas in doors even in places like Canada?
Nice banana 🍌 tree
Do you have videos of the tree with edible fruit?
Timing is everything isn’t it?
Definitely. “Good luck” is good timing. “Bad luck” is bad timing.
At 2;24 in I thought you would just say that this is the reason you where adding a greenhouse to the back, problem solved......
I would love a greenhouse, but it is difficult where I live due to the small residential plots of land and the HOA. I don’t know if I could get one approved, and the cost and space problem is significant. I’m experimenting with protecting my bananas this year with garden netting and straw. So far, they’re still pushing some growth.
Any idea if a greenhouse would need to be heated here ? I have 0 greenhouse experience. So Im not sure if it would hold heat long enough or not. Im thinking thermostat controlled portable heater maybe.
Here in the Wilmington area, if you have a large, professional polytunnel, especially one slightly recessed into the ground to use the ground as heat, you probably don't need to heat it (but don't quote me on that). If you're using something like a Harbor Freight greenhouse a kit you buy off of Amazon, you'll need to provide a source of heat. They only accumulate heat during the day when the sun is out. As soon as the sun goes down, they leak heat almost as quickly as outside. Some type of lean-to design that goes up against the house works better because it uses the home's heat as a radiation source of heat. I just built a heated hoop house for my garden. It may interest you: ua-cam.com/video/rWasTEXj-sE/v-deo.html
Get a dolly easy to move
why not build a small greenhouse around it
Small greenhouses don't really do anything. They have to be heated. The only greenhouses that actually work are passively or actively heated greenhouses, which are very expensive, large and can't be built in an HOA.
Not sure if you stated the feeding and soil. What type of soil and fertilizer are you using? thanks in advance
For bananas, every couple weeks I give it a big handful of 5-5-5 organic granulated. I water it usually weekly with standard MiracleGro 24-8-16, and every other week I supplement with potash crystals (0-0-60). Bananas LOVE potash.
I do that because it's in a container. Now, if it were in-ground, I'd be giving it wood ash and urine. I'm not kidding. If you have an in-ground banana tree and you're healthy and not on any medications, pee around your banana trees. Bananas love clean urine from humans (don't use pet urine, it's toxic).
@@TheMillennialGardener thank you for your response. Can you give a link to the potash crystals you using?
The Menace if you go to the video description, it is linked under Slow Release Fertilizers in my Amazon store. There is also a direct link in the video description for Potash.
@@TheMillennialGardener thank you. My banana leaves are yellowing and going to try your method
The Menace what are your current temps? Bananas go dormant around 55F. They really need a lot of heat, so if your temps are even remotely cool, expect some yellowing and dormancy.
So why are you upset that there was a banana flower and a pistol to make bananas I would be overwhelmed you have a mature tree
Banana flowers take about 90 days to fruit and ripen in the hottest heat of the summer. A flower at this stage in the fall means it will fail. Even in states like Florida, except at the furthest south points, bananas will languish in the fall and winter. They go mostly dormant when temps fall out of the 60's, and don't grow very quickly if temps are below the 80's. It can be done here, but it has to be timed just right. You can see that in this video: ua-cam.com/video/FrhJnAcXQ8E/v-deo.html
How do you clone a banana tree?
I'd love to meet and trade some plants
Trent Bailey banana trees grow from an underground rhizome, so they will send up little “pups.” You basically break them off with a shovel. You have to be careful so you pull the pup off with roots still attached so the pup can root and grow, but not pull off so much you’ll damage the corm (which is the “mother” rhizome). Then you stick the pup in a pot.
My bananas were mostly in containers, so they don’t pup much. They pup much more in ground.
The trunk is actually just rolled up leaves pretty much. I dont think you can clone them. The way your thinking anyway.