One of the easiest plants to grow are Bananas. They are delicious and beautiful and if you live in a suitable warm climate you can have sweet bananas to eat most of the year.
Bananas are a low maintenance plant to grow and with a few simple steps you can have lush looking plants and plenty of fruit to enjoy.
I personally think they’re beautiful are much nicer to grow than ornamental palms!!
For information on establishing your Bananas have a read of my article here - We’re going Bananas !!!
Here’s a few tips for keeping your Banana plants in top condition…
Regularly remove browning leaves, chop them up and lay on the ground around the clump of Banana stems.
These old leaves will add nutrients to the soil and help feed your Banana plants. They’ll also help to stop weeds from growing around plants.
You can also add a few handfuls of a quality organic slow release fertiliser (I use Organic Xtra from www.qldorganics.com.au) some blood and bone, compost or other old manures, then cover with a 10cm layer of brown mulch, eg cane, hay or old brown lawn clippings…The Bananas will love it!!
Always use a sharp cane knife or hand saw to cut the leaves, without tearing them, so there’s no damage the plant.
You’ll read in my article ‘We’re going Bananas‘ how Banana stems grow and for a productive crop it’s best to have 3 main stems growing - Grandmother, Mother and Daughter. This allow the energy and nutrients to be drawn in by the main fruiting stems, The Grandmother, and once she has fruited then the Mother stem will flower and bear fruit.
In order for these to be highly productive it’s a good idea to remove all other suckers, keeping 3 strong growing stems.
You’ll see in this image that I’ve removed the suckers and other stems growing to keep only 3 main stems.
I’ve chopped up the stems and leaves and laid them around the clump to decompose and feed the soil. Next step is to apply fertilisers and mulch and then pray for rain!!
Banana plants are stronger, healthier and produce good size bunches of fruit when they’re grown in well fed soil.
So to keep the fruit coming give your Banana plants a trim, a monthly feed (as above), cover with mulch and enjoy the lovely crops that they produce.
Also my other tip is to remove the bell flower before bagging the bunch, as the fruit will be sweeter and ripen quicker, especially in cooler months.
If you have any questions about growing Bananas please CONTACT ME HERE.
Happy Growing !!
Cath ♥
© cath manuel 15 july 2014
