Does a homegrown Cavendish (Chiquita) banana taste better than a store bought?
What’s the best dwarf banana tree one can grow in zone 9b?
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I will eat Cavendish. But much prefer Musa Orinco…aka …Burro Banana. I’m sheltered and seriously need to try more varieties though.
Our Burro Banana vendor has another banana sometimes. Very small and has the same apple like taste but a little sweeter. Think a little fatter then your thumb. Very thin skinned. Very rare those appear. Or what the name is.
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Thanks. You grow them there unprotected?
I googled that one and got this website selling fruit. $12 for one Orinoco Burro or a small box for $127. Only 297 for a xlarge box. They must be good lol. $77 for a Cherimoya. Now I know why everyone owns a 60’ boat I. Florida. Fresh Fruit – Miami Fruit
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No. I pay $5 for a hefty bunch of Burro Bananas. But what I’m getting is Musa Orinco. I see the Saba Banana is also called “Burro Banana” too.
The other Banana is “Lady Finger”.
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Thanks again. Saba Bananas grow 20-30’. That’s way too big. But now I’m going to have to go to a Filipino grocery store and see if they have any. Lady Finger gets 25’. These trees are wide also.
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Mine haven’t fruited but people in more or less my area have had success with dwarf Orinoco (not sure if that’s the same as what @dannytoro1 is referring to or not) and Dwarf Kokopo. I will increase my protection this winter so I can hopefully successfully fruit them both next year.
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It will taste better than store bought but there are also better cultivars than cavendish.
If your in south florida check these guys out
http://www.going-bananas.com/
Or try wellspring for tissue culture.
Lots of threads on taste here
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Loved the “Going Bananas” link. Being in South Georgia I want some cold hardiness and they have a list of them. Had a deceased friend who grew Blue Java in Fort Worth and he loved it.
Also I recall now when stationed in the Philippines we had Saba a lot. As our 2 house maids often cooked them. {Yes the good times where even a Senior master sergeant had 2 maids and a lawn boy…lol}
Since there are not cold hardy Plantains; I guess that would be a nice substitute.
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Going bananas looks like a special place thank you!
Dunno about the name, but the bananas in the 1970’s were much tastier.
in the 70s they were Cavendish. assuming you lived in america
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But not that much longer ago (50s-60s and earlier) it would have been the Gros Michel, before those all got wiped out.
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They sell those on Going Bannanas website. I’d love to taste one!
Grew a dwarf cavendish in a large pot. The bananas produced were very good. Very much like store bought but a little more banana flavor and sweetness.
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That’s great to know thanks Aaron and welcome to the forum.
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Welcome to the forum @Aaron6268!
Can you share an approximate pot size (in gallons or liters), and how tall it got before fruiting? Also, what climate it was grown in, whether it had to be overwintered, etc. Thank you for sharing your experience with this.
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grew dwarf cavendish in the tropics and under full sun, it won’t get much taller than 4-5 ft at the vertex(height where the stalk of the inflorescence loops downwards). Leaves will be shorter and stiffer under full sun too, so more resistant to leverage forces/windy weather. Most markets in tropics don’t use ethylene, cavendish fruits generally retain its green color even when fully ripe
have never tried growing bananas in usa(we’re in vegas) so curious about cultivar growth patterns outside of the tropics.
When I grew one here in the ground in my greenhouse (a Dwarf Cavendish, that is), it was already almost 10 feet high when it suddenly died in March 2023. No sign of a flag leaf yet at that point, but I kept hoping it was time before it started looking sick. I posted a summary of its death here at the time:
Some kind of rot killed it.
sorry to see that. Did the soil was growng on have good drainage?
I don’t think that was a dwarf cavendish, probably a mislabeled something or other. Seems easy to get a mislabeled pup
Speaking of I can send you pups anytime you want. I have currently 4 potted, but almost an infinite number I can dig up