Lessons from Growing Bananas

In most of Florida, you can grow tropical plants. Our property is between Zone 8 and 9, so we can grow tropical plants and some heat-tolerant plants that would normally be found further north. Tropical fruit-bearing plants include all citrus, bananas, avocados, papaya, mango, guava, pineapple and many others. Plants that like a little cold each year are berries, nectarines, peaches and even some apples. When we purchased our property, we planted several different fruit trees before we started building our house there.

Bananas and Our Failures

One of our friends had a backyard full of bananas. Since he had too many, he offered us one for free. It was planted between some larger palms where I knew it would get plenty of water. I planted kitchen scraps around the base from salads and other plants and it was doing great. Later, I tried to give it some cooked bone scraps; it was a vegetarian and died soon after.

A second banana tree was given to us by another friend. This one was planted on our property along with other tropical plants. We had avocado, mango, guava and pineapple in the same area. Since the winters do get colder, I made a barrier around these plants on three sides with logs and branches. We thought this would keep them from getting too cold. Unfortunately, this banana died from the cold.

The following year, hurricane Irma came through Florida. My friend with all the bananas in his back yard lost most of them. Mother Nature can be cruel at times, but I am not the only one who has lost bananas for one reason or another.

More Free Banana Trees

Our latest banana acquisition came from a neighbor who lives nearby. He had a bunch of banana trees by his fence that survived the hurricane. However, his fence was completely destroyed. I saw that he was replacing the fence and removing some of the bananas, so I stopped and asked what they were going to do with them.

When I found out they were headed for the trash, I offered to pick them up. My husband and his truck helped to salvage a load of bananas which we planted on our property in the fall. We dug a trench, added some kitchen scraps and potting soil. Then we put the bananas in close together like they usually grow. The dirt we excavated for the trench went back in to secure them.

Knowing that winter would come soon to lower the temperature at any time, we decided to use some abandoned bamboo and a few bales of straw to help them make it through the winter. The bamboo was cut into 4-foot sections and placed vertically around the trench close together.

Getting through a Cold Winter

We used straw for insulation and packed it inside the bamboo fence three feet deep. We gave the whole thing a good watering with graywater we brought from home. That year, we had a really cold winter with two inches of snow in the north of the state!

The bananas made it through the winter in their insulated enclosure. We know now that if the tops had frozen, the bottoms could still be alive. We would just need to trim off the dead leaves in the spring.

Unfortunately, our other tropical plants didn’t fare so well. We lost an avocado and a pineapple. The rest had their growth stunted considerably but are still alive. Going forward, we may have to erect a temporary greenhouse to protect these plants when the thermometer dips.