Who here has come from bananas.org, and who else here is growing bananas for fruit?
Iāve seen some amazingly creative uses of space on here, but those banana trees in that location take the prize! Thatās just neat. Now lets see some photos of bananas hanging on those! 
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As with other fruit, home grown is amazing I had some from a friend and they didnāt even taste like bananas! Best I ever had. Fantastic! These plants grow at unreal rates too.
Does hoping count? Once upon a time I had a stand that we overwintered in the ground for a couple of years. Then one year everything in that area died off. I havenāt been able to get anything at all to survive there since then. It wasnāt the bananas fault.
We had gotten the original pup from someone a few blocks away whose bananas did fruit and ripen that year.
Right now I have one very small Mahoi and one plant that is supposed to be a dwarf Cavendish, but since most of the plants surrounding it at Lowes said Basjoo, and the only markers were those thin plastic ones stuck into the pots, I really donāt know which it is. It overwintered in the house.
I found a Grand Nain nearby and was going to buy last Sunday, but didnāt have room in the car with the other plants. I went back yesterday afternoon in pouring rain, but they were locking the nursery entrance gate extra early because no one normal shops outside on days like that. Iāll have to try again the next time I have the car during business hours.
I have read a few threads on the banana org forum, but it will only allow a few threads to be read before freezing a viewer out unless they register.
Richard, I really like how you have your bananas securely. Very clever and very smart use of reflective heat from the house wall, too. What varieties are you growing? I have a couple of banana plants up on my front slope. Hoping for bananas this year.
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I registered at bananas.org about a year and a half ago, but only made a couple of posts. Iāve got a couple of Veinte Cohol that Iām going to try here in zone 7. Iāll keep them in pots outside during the warm months, then overwinter them in my greenhouse. Iām hoping because of the small size of the plants, and their supposed quick fruiting that I can successfully pull it off. Weāll see. Any thoughts or advice?
Namwah, Pome, Brazilian, Pisang Ceylon.
We try to grow ice cream and raja puri. Fruit would be awesome but all we get are tiny bananas. Ive read that its because we dont remove the suckers and let them grow in clusters. Someday id like to set up a nice row of them and keep the suckers off to see if it makes a difference. Otherwise they grow fantastically here. Our ice cream bananas are easily 20 ft tall.
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Namwa is often sold as Ice Cream. Is there are slight powder blue coating to the stalks and do the bananas have a blue hue?
No blue that ive ever seenā¦
Iāve grown dwarf cavendish bananas in pots. Itās very difficult to keep them going in the winter in my house. The air is very dry. We have to have a humidifier for those banana plants. I got a plant from Logeeās in CT. It had a few babies so I separate them and potted them up. I got 4-5 of them. They are in a spare bedroom. Itās still too cold to take them outside. They were outside from late spring to early fall. We donāt have enough long hot days for it to mature and fruit. At this point, I grow them for a tropical feel.
Namwah is the most common banana in Thailand. Itās not that sweet when compare to other varieties esp. the small ones with yellow fresh. Green Namwah is widely used to make banana-related desserts.
I admit it takes no effort for anyone to grow a few bananas at home so I never really learn how to grow them properly. They grow like weeds.
We have the same banana sold in supermarkets here. We call it āfragrant banana (via translation)ā because it smells very nice when ripe. Itās hard to describe but it is fragrant and delicious probably the most popular banana for consumption.
Youāve probably got Dwarf Namwa. In your location the fruits will be 4" to 6" max length and 1" to 1.5" in diameter.
The bananas sold in supermarkets here in the U.S. are longer by comparison. They are also less tasty.
Well only the fruit are dwarf, otherwise its 20ft tall!
Sure, but we measure banana plant height by the stem height at fruiting. About how high above the ground did the inflorescence (bunch) emerge?
I just put in Raja Puri, Gran Naim, Ice Cream, Apple, California Gold and Goldfinger.
Usually about 10-15 ft off the ground.
That would be appropriate for āstandardā Namwa.
My icecream bananas are like what Eric describes. They are green and small not blue as pictured.
Damn it sucks to know I have the wrong plant. Didnāt even know there was a dwarf.
I mainly grow bananas for compost, they are fantastic miners of Ca & K
http://wasterecycleinfo.com/bananna.html
I also use basjoo banana as mosquito traps.
Green tree frogs feel the leaves vibrate as bugs hit them.
your backyard āoperationā looks quite intense, love it! Congrats and good luck, and keep us all posted here!
Namwa and Dwarf Namwa are often sold as other well-known bananas. For example, what is sold by nurseries as Goldfinger is typically Dwarf Namwa.
Now donāt get too excited about the ādwarfā part. The fruit emerges at a stem height of about 6 feet at which time there will be a few leaves reaching 10 foot overall height.