Banana-dramas

It took 18 long months for our bananas to arrive.  They are certified disease free from a specialist banana nursery up in Tully that tissue cultures bananas for commercial and home growers.  Due to the significance of the banana industry in QLD, only bananas other than Cavendish can be grown at home and a permit must be sought from Biosecurity.  The recent case of Panama disease in a QLD plantation highlights the importance of obtaining healthy disease-free bananas.

Banana tubestock ready to hit the chook pen. 
To the left is Goldfinger and on the right is the Dwarf Ducasse

Having successfully tested them out at our previous place, we kept with Goldfinger (yes I sing it in my head each time) and Dwarf Ducasse.  The creaminess of home grown bananas beats anything you can buy from the shops.

The plants take 12 months or more to fruit for the first time so we're in for a bit more of a wait at our new property to see things through. Still, we'll have fruit off the bananas before the citrus so we can't complain too much.

Besides the fruit, bananas are an excellent plant to have in the garden.  They love a lot of water and nutrients so they're great in the chook pen where I dump our scraps and lawn clippings for the girls to have fun digging in and turning into compost.  The compost and the chook poop in turn feed the bananas which then grow to provide plenty of shade for the girls.  A win-win situation for the bananas and chooks.

The only drawback of having the bananas in the pen with the chooks has been protecting them while they're getting established.  For some reason the current batch of chooks seem to enjoy feasting on banana leaves.  I anticipated their desperate desire to dig up the bananas by planting them in boxes; however, the cheeky girls just hopped right in and scratched away before figuring out the leaves were rather tasty too.  The next counter-measure was to put old barbeque grills over the boxes which was successful in stopping the scratching but as soon as the plants recovered enough to produce leaves that poked though the grates, the chickens discovered their new buffet.  After a fair amount of procrastination and utterance of many a proverbial, we constructed these somewhat flimsy but effective covers that allow enough light and rain through to keep the bananas happy and shielded from belligerent beaks.  An added bonus is that we can leave them in place over winter to protect from any chance of frost damage too.

One of the cheeky culprits

Banana slowly starting to recover its leaves

Aside from the obvious benefit of a nice big bunch once a year and excited chickens, bananas have a few other useful attributes.  As the stem grows, some of the outer leaves die off to make room for the new ones.  These can be chopped up and used as mulch around the chook pen or in garden beds.  They can be a little waxy though so mix it up with something else for mulch.  Once fully grown the plant will produce the long-awaited fruit.  Before the bunch matures the flowers provide a great source of food for birds and native bees.  The petals from the bell can be dried, re-soaked and stitched together to make bags and water carriers.

The fruit then slowly form, gradually curling their fingers up, and if you forget to bag the bunch on time it provides a great source of food for local possums, bats and other night munchers.  If you remember to bag them and abundance of yummy fruit ensues and you can even play a certain secret agent with the fruit of the Goldfinger for extra fun before eating.

Once you or some other hairy mammal has consumed the fruit, the main stem can be cut down.  The outer parts of each section of stem can be cut in long strips, dried, soaked again, then made into string (a process which is also useful as depilation if you haven't used that old contraption known as a razor on your thighs in a while).  Meanwhile the rest can be chopped up and used as mulch in the garden or as more compost for happy chickens.

Lifecycle complete!  If you have any other interesting uses for various parts of the banana feel free to leave them in the comments.

Hand picked

Yesterday we picked our first hand of bananas.  I'll admit the harvest this time around will involve quite a bit of guesswork and a lot of internet trawling, having no experience with bananas other than the time my father harvested a huge bunch when I was a little girl.  All four of the kids managed to fit along the bunch to hold it for the photo.  If you have any tips on when to pick I'd be more than happy to hear them!

We've left the bell on this one and cut it off the other

The hand we chose was from the Lady Finger as this was the first to fruit, followed by the dwarf Ducasse.  We bagged them a few weeks ago and I've been checking on them periodically ever since.  The bags have worked so far but the only problems is that you can't quite tell the colour of the bananas.  I was becoming increasingly paranoid that they'd all ripen at once and that some of them were surely yellow already so I convinced His Tallness (aka Mr Colliwat) to do some more manly ladder climbing pirate style with a knife between his teeth and to teeter at the top of the mast and check on my precious bounty.

After much teetering, he slid the bag down the bunch and allayed my fears.  The bunch was still well and truly green but the fingers were nice and fat like the lady had been treated to a little too much cake.  Wielding his cutlass he deftly slashed the topmost hand off at the wrist with one blow.  Grabbing a banana leaf and with the knife between his teeth he swung bang down to the deck with the treasure.  (Well, maybe not but a little story's better than the mundane truth, right?)

The hand weighed in at 875g (waaaay too much cake indeed) and is now resting in the fruit bowl with a ripe banana.  Fingers crossed it will ripen before the rest of the bunch.  I love bananas but I don't think I want 30kg or more all at once and there's a limit to how many you can palm off to friends and family before they give you the finger.

It's in the bag

I picked up the tiny eggplant that had fallen from the bush.  Hmm, mustn't be watering enough.  So every time I got the hose out or the grey water bucket from the dishes I'd make sure it had enough to drink.  I pruned off the old and scraggly branches so the little plant could put it's energy into new growth and wouldn't sag under the weight of presumptuously large fruit.

The eggplant responded to my extra care by putting on new flowers and leaves.  Flowers turned to fruit and I admit I was counting chickens before the eggs had hatched for just as one was getting to a size where I could snavel it for a sneaky afternoon grill session the fruit developed rotten patches.  Thinking it must have been the recent rainfall and humidity, I cut off the fruit and threw it to the chooks.  When the next one suffered the same fate I had to think again.  Three strikes and I realised then that I had been in denial.  The culprit was obvious: fruit fly.

Cutting of the next fruit that had early signs of being stung I resolved to combat this insect that was robbing me of my chances of enjoying home grown eggplant.  However, caught up with other projects I let the next fruit develop, telling myself that it was hidden from the view of millions of segmented fruit fly eyes in the long grass that was encroaching on the plant.  Whether this was true remains to be seen.

It was hot today - too hot to be out digging much more than a single row to plant a few seeds.  This meant it was time for an indoor project.  It was then that I remembered my long suffering eggplant peering tentatively out between the blades of grass.  It was decided: fruit fly exclusion bags would be my task for today.  I had some spare undyed muslin in the cupboard so I whipped out my sewing machine and set about making a few simple drawstring bags of ambitiously large proportions to fit my soon to be giant specimens of eggplant.  Luckily I even had some leery-coloured yarn lying around to repel the fruit flies even more.

Channelling my inner bag-lady I continued the trend once the cool afternoon breeze had started and finally (with some manly ladder-climbing help) got the banana bunches bagged before the bats decided to munch on them.