So fast!
Summer nights tend to be in the 50-60 range, mid 60s during heat waves
In the true tropics, non-ornamental bananas take 7 to 9 months from “pup” to ripe fruit. In the many southern California “banana belts”, the most common maturation time for hardy varieties is 18 months. In moderate areas of northern California the time line is expanded further.
Oh, That would be so nice if it would cool down at night like that here.
I give my naners pep talks now and then. Some have grown very rapidly this summer. I encourage them to keep it up, but ask them to please not bloom this year. One, in particular, has been highly vigorous. That one is supposed to be blue java. I just bought it this past winter, but it’s outpacing all the others. My hope is that they will all hold off, and that at least one will humor me by flowering late next spring or early next summer. Then they will be able to put to good use the long months of what I consider our unbearably hot and humid weather.
Who knows? Maybe I’ll hit the trifecta and be able to harvest bananas, mangoes, and papayas all in the same year!
Please keep up the photolog and commentary on your banana’s progress. They give encouragement to all of us out of zone growers. I’d love to see some pics of the stand that shows the group as though you are facing it. If you have any pics of the flag leaf, those would be great, too. Have you measured any leaves? It was difficult to do alone, but I measured one leaf on a plant this morning that was 20" across and 62" long, not counting the stem. I have no idea how much larger these will continue to get.
I’d concur with that. My CA Golds were planted in May 2015 as 18" tall pups, so if their fruits manage to ripen by Thanksgiving that would be 19 months + the month or two the pups were alive before I got them. Still, given that 2-3 more pups appear each year, I should expect at least 1 or 2 crops of bananas each summer if I’m lucky. To me that’s enough fruit output to warrant a permanent place in my garden (unless the fruit turns out to suck like you’re suggesting).
Oh you too are trying mangos and papayas! I have two mango trees that just flowered and one papaya that just started flowering (all males unfortunately) but I don’t think we have enough summer left to ripen the fruits. I’ll do another post in this forum about my progress with these and other tropicals.
Joe, do you live in Almaden by any chance. I’m curious about your microclimate.
Los Gatos, 600 ft elevation, Santa Cruz mountain foothills. Sunset zone 15/16.
Bananas are planted on level ground at the base of a north-facing slope, so they are sort of south-facing, but the slope and neighbor’s trees cost me a few hours of sunlight every day.
your specimen seems determined and undaunted. Am sure you’re aware, but if not, you could help hasten maturation of the viable ‘hands’ by removing the banana blossom once you see a drastic reduction in size of the subsequent hands. Still optimistic you could get them as close to or even past the finish line before getting caught by cold weather.
yeah, truly the pervasive challenge for out-of-zone folks. Requiring some sort of rhythm method to approximate the most promising time to ‘conceive’ bananas and attain full maturity…
Here is the flag leaf on the day I first noticed it, July 20th. I was out of the town the last week of July so I couldn’t photograph it while it emerged.
I don’t have any recent photos of the whole plant but here is a photo from back in December after a light frost and 3 nights in the low 30s. Every leaf in this photo was nuked and I wound up pruning them all off. Come February it began growing again. Obviously that 2 month winter break and the loss of leaves was not a serious problem.
Beautiful
one tough banana pup which grew up to be a pit bull
Wow very nice.
I have a dwarf Orinoco that’s about the same size I planted as TC over the hill here in Livermore. Which I’m praying throws up the flag leaf soon or I may not get viable fruit, as it is already 18 months old, and hoping to not have to cover it over winter.
Depending on how soon the night time temperatures drop (sustained) below 50F, you might hope for the opposite.
True. Especially since I just noticed after coming home from vacation, the latest leaf has choked and is looking pretty messed up atm.
My Namwa, Pisang Ceylon, and SH-3640 are now within one or two feet of fruiting height. I’m hoping they don’t get all hot and bothered until next spring!
Seems weird hoping for fruit to slow down
I may give Namwa a try next year if I can find some local.
Most brick-and-mortar nurseries (incl. big box stores) sell Namwa mislabeled as Goldfinger and Ice-Cream.
I’ll look out for these “mislabeled” gems. That way I also won’t care too much if they don’t make it!
Thanks.