Time for another update! That first bunch is still hanging and is just about ready. The fruit are looking gorgeous, and have filled out very nicely. I should be able to harvest them just in time for winter.
The big daughter has just thrown out a flower bud too. The timing of this one is a bit unfortunate since there is cool weather around the corner, but I am extremely impressed by the yield. 12 hands with 184 fruit total!! This seems on the high end for Blue Java, no?
Even though we have a very high chance of losing fruit over the winter here, especially if they are at an earlier stage of maturity like this, I have decided to give this one a chance. If I get unlucky and lose the fruit, I am sure they will make great fermented plant juice fertilizer.
The mat has continued to grow quite a bit too, and I have still been consistently piling garden waste around the base. I have lost count of the number of pups, and have already cut back one of the larger ones to make mulch. There are probably around a dozen and a half on there. I will be separating many of them in spring. I've been leaning a lot towards leaving more pups on the plant so that I have a high chance of getting one to flower in late spring/early summer, which is the ideal time for ensuring proper fruit development here. I think this is a good strategy for maximizing fruit yields in a subtropical climate such as mine.
We have our first rains of the wet season set to arrive next week, and it looks like we will be getting a lot of precipitation this time around thanks to El Nino. I am wondering how the mat will respond to all of this moisture given that it's growing in a huge pile of compost. Waterlogging can be a real killer of bananas here, but if anything, I imagine all of that extra soil organic matter would help.
More updates to come, so stay tuned!
