I know that there was some talk about Banana plants earlier. I think Critter has some???
I though you might be interested in this old thread I just updated. My daughter a non-gardner happens to have a Banana tree growing in her livingroom. It was given to her several years ago and is now somewhere around 12 ft tall and is blooming and growing fruit.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/680750/#new
Holly, that is so cool! I don't imagine they're edible, are they? But how neat to have your own bananas.
what fun! hart, why wouldn't they be edible?
Most of the plants I've seen seeds for say the bananas aren't edible so I just assumed. Maybe they are.
The plants came as babies from one of my son's friends parents. I'm going to see what I can find out about them. I think there was some mention that they weren't edible but I wouldn't know why.
There are lots of varieties of bananas but I think you have to be in a real tropical area (and grow them outside) to grow the big yellow ones like we get at the grocery store. I don't know about plantains. I would imagine they're pretty tropical too.
There's a neat little canyon on the Pacific Coast Highway with a micro-climate that allows them to grow a lot of different bananas. They specialize in unusual varieties. It's a really strange sight. I think the town is called La Conchita.
If I remember right, they determined they could grow the big yellow ones there, but there was no point in trying to compete with big plantations in Central American 'banana republics', so they grow bananas and plantains most of us never see for local markets.
edited to add that after googling around a bit, I see it was destroyed in a mudslide in 2005. Bummer.
This message was edited Nov 25, 2007 9:07 AM
