banana

Cibolo, TX(Zone 8b)

Are all bananas edible. Someone told me ethat some are just ornamental,and you cant eat them

Keaau, HI

The flesh of any Musa (Banana) species is edible, but many of them are loaded with buckshot-like seeds.

noonamah, Australia

That's right. It's not so much that you can't eat them but that you wouldn't want to eat them. A lot are grown just ornamentally - red flowered, purple/blue flowered, some with their flowering stems straight up instead of bent down. Some of those have tiny bananas you just wouldn't bother with.

Tampa, FL(Zone 9b)

What (in your opinion) would be the best kind of banana to grow at home?

Keaau, HI

The 'Dwarf Cavendish' Banana is likely the best cultivar for any home owner with limited space.

It's a good producer and the fruit is delicious!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_Cavendish_banana

Lakeland, FL(Zone 9b)

what type of banana do I have?

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Lakeland, FL(Zone 9b)

My banana is fruiting

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Lakeland, FL(Zone 9b)

It seems my banana may be finished making fruit, since the latest "row" of banana babies didn't form and the ends look almost rotted. But there is lots of the hard red-covered piece hanging down that might contain more baby bananas as the "leaves" curl up and drop off. May I have some guidance on what is normal, what to watch for, when to expect the fruit to ripen, how do I know when it is ripened, etc? Am I in the right forum? TIA,
JoJo

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noonamah, Australia

Once no more fruits develop it's best to cut the bottom of the stem off. Flowers would keep coming but they don't produce any more fruit and end up wasting the plants resources. You want the plant to concentrate its energies on the bunch/fruit that is developing.

Lakeland, FL(Zone 9b)

thanks, tropicbreeze. I cut off the rest of the stem using something like a handsaw?

also,someone told me that once a banana plant produces fruit, it will never produce again; so once these bananas are harvested I should cut down this particular tree, allowing more room for the existing pups to flourish. is this true? tia,
jojo

noonamah, Australia

The photo below shows the stem cut off on one of my bunches. You can see a few very small undeveloped fruits still on it that won't ever get bigger.

Once they've finished fruiting the stem dies away. Because they're so prolific and starve each other it's best not to have too many stems at the one time. Normal practice is to have one large one fruiting or close to fruiting. One middle sized one that will replace the larger one when the time comes. And one new sucker/pup. The rest of the small suckers you need to cut out. Done carefully they can be used to propagate new plants, or otherwise just mulched.

Thumbnail by tropicbreeze

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