harveyc

Thanks, Chris, for posting the photos. I have mostly shorter bananas fruiting so far and have not had to prop them but I've wanted to grow some big bamboo for a while and you've given me a good reason to get started on that!

You look pretty dressed up in that one photo for a banana worker.

Harvey

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Rmplmnz

Ha ha..thanks Harvey...I can't be a slacker everyday....lol..

Bamboo certainly has it advantages...but man oh man is it some serious work to trim...make sure you plant a clumper away from any power/phone/cable lines or fencing......

Chris

harveyc

I've got some acreage and would just plant it in a corner where I don't need to do much with it. Across the highway from my house I'll sometimes trim back big masses of running bamboo with a chain saw or just shove it back with a backhoe. That's a mess! My neighbor has a clumb of large bamboo that hasn't had anything done to it for probably 30+ years and it looks pretty nice.

I saw some being air-layered at a nursery earlier this year and need to find out more if that's the best way to propagate it.

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heynow

Nice pics Chris, Thank you for the Plants last winter, the praying hands got huge and are in bloom right now. The rest are not to far behind. Just hope for no frost this year. They have some nice pups so even if the fruit gets damaged the pups should bloom when the weather is milder and they will have time to mature. Go Bucs Glenn

Rmplmnz

Frequent Garden Visitor...

This bird has been a daily visitor to the many banana blooms in our yard.

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Chironex

It looks like a female, Red-bellied woodpecker, but I can't quite see it well enough to confirm. They have a faint red coloring on the belly - more so on the males than females.

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Scot

chong

Yep. That's what they are. We have several around our house that roost on the attic vent screens. They sometimes rip the vents open. On a couple of occassions, they accidentally flew into the house through the open sliding door. I was a able to catch one of them the first time around and it was hard hanging on to it, as it had very powerful legs and sharp claws. So, the next time around we just shooed them back out through several other windows. Very pretty, though.

harveyc

That bird is the only pest in my chestnut orchard and I shoot them, when I can. They are the only thing that seems to be able to peck a hole into a chestnut shell.

It's promising to see our bunch has filled out without leaves. Here in zone 9 I have a supposed Raja Puri in the same boat. It bloomed last summer but didn't mature by the time I picked bunches of two other varieties in December so I decided to chance it and just leave it over the winter with a plastic bag over it. The psuedostem and bananas are green so I'm hoping they can mature over the next few months now that we have good weather. However, somewhere i've heard someone suggest that just "maybe" pups might provide nutrition to the mother plant. What does everybody think? Is that really possible?

Congrats,

Harvey

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Bananaman88

Congrats on the Hua Moa! I bought one last spring as well from Sandy. Mine made it through the winter pretty well. It is around 5' tall right now. I'm hoping for fruit later in the year.

Greenie

thanks for sharing!

harveyc

Brent, please explain as mine did not make it here. I provided it no protection and we had about 30 days of frost, reaching a low of around 28F-30F. Did you give yours protection? If not, maybe I should try again.

Thanks,

Harvey

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Bananaman88

Yes, I wrapped mine almost every time it threatend to get down near freezing. Plus, you know, I'm the man when it comes to growing bananas! Yeah, that's why my Ae-Ae died

austinl01

Congratulations on all your successes!

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Austin
Arkansas River Valley

Average January Low: 31°F, Average August High: 92°F
Extreme Winter Lows: 5-15°F, Extreme Summer Highs: 100-112°F, Annual Precipitation: 52 inches

just j

i wont tell ppl that u shoot them lol some states they r protected i would check it out

Rmplmnz

Hua Moa Tostones


Tostones (from the Spanish verb tostar which means "to toast"[1]), also called patacones, are a side dish made from sliced green (unripe) plantains which are cut either length-wise or width-wise and are twice fried.


Tostones - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


We microwave once and Fry once (to avoid "Double" frying)

Banana ID - Bananas.org

harveyc

Hey, "just j", I'd rather not ask, though many birds which are protected here can still be shot if done so to protect a crop. I don't do any shooting of birds, etc. just for the fun of it.

Rmplmnz, I laughed when I saw your dog photo as that was just what I felt like when looking at the photos above it. "oh pretty please, can I have some????" Looks good, thanks for sharing!

Harvey

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island cassie

Hey Rmplmnz - those tostones look delicious - homemade ones are sooo much better than restaurant ones.

Our Hispaniolan woodpeckers look very similar to yours, but I have never seen them on the bananas - interesting! But they are a real pest here - folks with wooden gingerbread trim on their roofs have it all drilled to pieces. We have a reinforced concrete roof for earthquakes, but my coconut palms are drilled full of holes.

Harvey - I would think that when the fruiting stem has very few leaves, big pups would provide some food for the mat generally. When any plant is severely stressed, all the effort goes into producing and ripening fruit/seeds, so I don't see why bananas would be different.

My 2 pesos worth!

Caloosamusa

Congratulations Rmplmnz!

Next year I'm going to do a much better job of winter covering. A little down here will really help.

Island Cassie, people may consider that wood pecker a pest, but the consequences to the plants and wood on the house would be much worse if the woodpecker was not allowed to peck a hole to get the wood borers doing the real damage.

Best wishes good growing, and awesome job Rmpmnz in overcoming the freezes and still getting that harvest!!!

momoese

Looks yummy!

frog7994

very tasty looking hope to be doing the same soon.