ich ben ein ugandan

Ugandans love bananas. In fact, many receive 30 percent of their daily caloric intake from them, eating three to 11 bananas daily, or roughly 500 to 800 pounds annually. The consumption numbers apply roughly to Ugandan's neighbors, as well, though to a lesser extent.

-from " 'Super-bananas' Enter U.S.Market Trials," posted July 1 on the Scientific American website.

Yonanas for Father's Day?

Taking frozen bananas to the next level!
Go here.

Dr. Campbell endorses this, so it must work as advertized.

UPDATE:  Received this item from Carol for Father's Day and it works.

I also got a great card:

Front: "Happy Father's Day, etc.!"
 Inside:  "A nap has been taken in your honor."

And so it went on Sunday afternoon after church.

Bananas under Grave Threat

In Central America:

The government in Costa Rica, one of the biggest suppliers of the fruit, has already declared a “national emergency” over the state of its crop.

The country’s half-a-billion-dollar banana export industry has been hit by two separate plagues of mealybugs and scale insects, with up to 20 per cent of its produce written off.

Magda Gonzalez, the director of the agriculture ministry’s State Phytosanitary Services (SFE), told The Tico Times last week that climate change had boosted insect populations in recent years, making plagues increasingly likely across the world.

In Asia, Africa, Jordan, and Australia:

Meanwhile, a Scientific American report warned of a variant of banana-eating fungus which is currently threatening key plantations around the world.

Scientists believed the disease, caused by the fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp.cubense (Foc), was limited to parts of Asia and Australia. Yet it has now been found in Jordan and Mozambique, and in a new strain to which the vast majority of bananas are susceptible.

“It’s a gigantic problem,” said Rony Swennen, a breeder at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

-from Britain's The Independent, noted on the current Drudge Report, and brought to my attention by Carol.

Here's the link to the Scientific American report.

Meanwhile, we have two stalks currently on our trees, but our little grove is in grave need of some TLC.  I'll get on it.

I Scream! You Scream!

We harvested our second bunch of bananas today. This bunch had been growing on our "Ice Cream" banana plant for several months. We had been hoping that it would ripen up when we had our company at the beginning of this month. Alas! it did not, and now I suppose I will have eat them myself. (Pause to sigh.)

Last weekend, we had a pretty severe, local storm, and the trunk of the plant on which hung our bunch "folded." The expert advice at We Be Bananas on such a development is simply to leave the trunk alone and not try to prop it up. The bunch will simply continue to ripen.


The expert advice is also that a shock may cause the bunch to finish ripening up quickly. And so it did. All of a sudden the green bananas moved to a bright yellow.

The photos show the folded plant; my cutting away with a little saw "hands" of bananas from the stalk; and Carol in the kitchen washing them off. We plan on giving a "hand" or two to our next door neighbors, a couple about our age who are of Cuban descent and loved the bananas from our last bunch. We will also take some to church tomorrow.

Carol wisely refrained today buying the usual half dozen or so hands she gets at Publix every Saturday (I expect the stock price to plunge on Monday), so we will eat some of our bananas during the coming week and freeze the rest.

Banana Report: First Fruits and Another Bunch Coming

About three weeks ago, the bunch on our "Goldfinger" banana plant ripened, almost all at once. Every day for about 5 days we went out and harvested bananas off the bunch, putting them in a bowl that I have pictured. There were too many even for me to consume, although we went an entire week without any store-bought bananas. With the overflow, we made gifts to neighbors, baked cookies, banana bread, and a cobbler (the second photo), and froze several quarts of them ripe and mashed up. And they were delicious!

Now we have another bunch on the way, this one on our "Ice Cream" banana plant. Not sure when the fruit will ripen, but it looks like it is getting close. Yum!

We Be Bananas

A super site that Carol found.

September Plantation Report

July 5 photo here. May 30 photo here.

I have made a mulch bed recently, as you can see, where I dump grass clippings, palm fronds, and compost from our composter. The idea is not only to enrich the soil (I apply a monthly dose of specially mixed banana fertilizer) but also to protect against the dreaded nematode. That bug fastens on the roots and sucks the nutrients. According to the advice I received from the people at Katie's Going Bananas, keeping the ground covered this way gives you the greatest chance of avoiding them.

Looking for the Bleeding Edge?

1190 Dove.

Fertilizer Bin for the Dove Avenue Plantation

Banana plants are voracious eaters. I bought fifty pounds of a special banana mix fertilizer, and we're looking for a bin to keep the stuff in. Carol had this idea. My idea was this one.

How Goes the Plantation?

Compare.

UPDATE: Last night I heard something in the backyard. It awakened me from a deep sleep. I walked out on the porch and looked over at the banana plants. Something was being sprinkled on them that reflected the moonlight. The plants began to turn in their beds, began to spin, the leaves like so many rotors on a helicopter. I felt just the slightest lurch and the entire lot was being lifted up. And up. And up. Soon we were moving across Miami Springs, the plants still spinning. We circled downtown and then came back, settling back in the blank space that we had left at 1190 Dove. It reminds me of what happened to our camper years ago, when the Magic Chicken took us all for a ride while we were on a camping trip.

Trifecta on the Plantation

The third banana plant arrived today at the Dove Avenue Plantation, this one by mail, carefully boxed up and in good condition, from Stokes Tropicals. This one is known as an "Ice Cream" or "Blue Java" banana, an irresistible name. It's the one on the left in the photo.

That gives us a Cavendish from Lowe's, a Goldfinger from Katie's Going Bananas, and this Ice Cream from Stokes Tropicals.

Three's a charm. Now we give them tender, loving care for about a year as they grow up. In about six months after that, we may well be awash in bananas. What joy!

Flash!! Dove Avenue Banana Plantation Doubles!

On the right in the photo is the newest addition, a "Goldfinger" banana plant from Katie's Going Bananas. More on the development of the Goldfinger here. It is also known as the FHIA-01.

In the photo's background is our compost box and a pile of compost on the right. We throw all our veggie kitchen scraps in the box, along with lawn and shrub clippings, and let them all cook down.

Composting is very important to the banana plants, because it keeps the soil warm and helps kill nematodes. Nematodes attack the roots of the banana plant, making it weak, subject to disease, with an adverse affect on the banana bunches. The Goldfinger may be better able to withstand the nematodes, but we are going to take no chances.

The Cavendish is [not] a GMO

Like all edible bananas, [the Cavendish (AAA group)] members have been long cultivated and are hybrids of Musa acuminata and M. balbisiana. The “AAA” is a genetic designation, which specifies the members of this group as triploids (having an extra set of chromosomes) rather than diploids, the natural genetic state of most plant cells. In contrast, tetraploids would be noted as “AAAA” and diploids as “AA.” The letters in “AAA” also distinguish its relative genetic content from Musa acuminata (A) and M. balbisiana (B). Because Cavendish bananas are triploid, having an extra chromosome copy, they are more vigorous than average bananas and produce larger fruits in greater quantity.

-from the Learn2Grow website.

UPDATE: This afternoon we went down to the Homestead area with Van and Juliet to a nursery called "Katie's Going Bananas". Among other things, Don (Katie's husband I think) told us that bananas are NOT GMOs. He definitely had a few not nice things to say about GMOs and said that the soy and corn here in the US were pretty much GMOs, but that Europe has done a much better job. We learned a lot about growing bananas and bought another plant, this one a different variety. That will be the subject of a separate post, but I needed to inform the world that bananas in the US are still non-GMOs. Whew! (We stopped off at Robert is Here.)

Banana Oat Meal Cookies (vegan)

Mary made these while she was here. I calculated two WW points per cookie. They were super good!

Dove Avenue Banana Plantation

It was inevitable.

UPDATE: Well, of course!

I purchased the banana plant pictured from Lowe's. The plant had a Lowe's tag, and it said that the banana variety is "Cavendish," also known, according to the tag, as Musa acuminata 'Cavandish'. The tag had other helpful information, and it gave a web address for "care instructions." There is more on the webpage for this plant than care instructions. For example,

The Cavendish (AAA Group) includes the following edible banana cultivars and cultivar subgroups:

* ‘Double’
* ‘Dwarf Cavendish’
* ‘Extra Dwarf Cavendish’
* ‘Giant Cavendish’ (and its cultivars)
* ‘Grand Naine’
* ‘Pisang Misak Hijau’ (the green ripe bananas)

The tag didn't say to which subgroup the banana plant we brought home belongs. My guess is that it is a "Grand Naine," which I understand to be the kind we buy at Publix that are grown by Chiquita. But we'll see.