Had a really nice surprise today. One of my Banana trees in the lower part of my garden has a flower. This flower is much larger than I've ever had, so anticipate a lot of bananas. I could see the first row of bananas at the top of the flower and can tell they are larger than normal.
It takes bananas about six months to mature, so I look at harvesting these in January. My normal harvest period has been March or April, so this is a little early. I have two other mature trees I expect to flower this year, but still waiting. It will be fine. It just means I will have bananas all spring.
(3 August) It's been a few days since I noticed the flower and it is starting to open nicely to expose all the tiny Bananas. They are larger than I normally get, so excited to try them. I will cover them to minimize the damage.
For those that do not know how to prune a Banana flower I will explain. The tip of the purple flower is called a bell. It will keep growing even after the all the bananas appear. I let it grow a few weeks and I will cut it off. I will cut all the bananas of the last hand, except one. This will force the nutrients back up the bunch.
I do not each the bell, but it is actually eatable. Simply remove all the hard outer purple leafs until you get to the center. I will be white and look like a large bamboo shout. You can cook it or slice it up raw and add to salads. I'll share this in a future post.
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