Bananas in raised beds
 

Because of my tortoises I have to plant my bananas with some protection from grazing.
I'm going to build raised beds and wonder how large is a good size for a typical mat to spread out.
Is 3' x 5' large enough? The bottoms will be open.
Anybody have any experience with this?

Thank you,

Ray

Re: Bananas in raised beds
 

Hi Ray

We live on the slope of a young volcano, Kilauea, on Big Island Hawaii. Most of our acreage is only 2,000 years-old lava flow, so not much soil has formed. We currently have over 150 mats of bananas, all planted in raised beds. Our experience has shown that bananas' roots will travel 12-15 feet in search of nutrients (Remember, all musas are "heavy feeders".) Essentially, we provide a massive raised bed that covers enough room for the roots to travel as far as they want!

The results are fantastic ... our plants are voluptuous: reaching full developmental heights, and giving great harvests of fruit. Most mature mats (2-5 years old) have 5-10 pseudostem stalks of varying stages.

I hope this helps.

ALoha, Marvin

Re: Bananas in raised beds
 

If you manage them by removing suckers periodically, you can keep them within that size of 3x5ft. However, if you just let them go, overtime they would certainly outgrow the space. Its variety and condition dependent, but the largest mats I have seen exceed 15ft in diameter.

Re: Bananas in raised beds
 

Ditto, Gabe. Since they are shallow rooted, raised beds can work great. After a year or two of putting compost around mine, they are essentially growing in raised beds, sitting on top of my soil (clay/cobble). I just mound up the compost to make a watering basin, and don't have an boards, etc, of form the edge of the bed. Make the beds bigger rather than smaller. Minimum 10' diameter.

Re: Bananas in raised beds
 

I'm have been keeping a max of 2-3 pups on my container bananas. Its certainly doable if you keep this number down.

Re: Bananas in raised beds
 

You could put something in the bed around them (however far out) as a container, for example, tin roofiing, deep enough in to keep them from spreading. Although I'm not quite sure how well that would really work!

Re: Bananas in raised beds
 

So these guys walking around in your yard are like the huge ones you see at zoo's?

Re: Bananas in raised beds
 

Tommy,
There is a product made for containing running bamboo called "rhizome barrier".
If I were looking to contain the bananas it is what I would use.
I just don't want my tortoises to eat the pups and chew the P-stems and topple my large plants so I need to elevate the planting surface high enough to keep them out.

Blownz, I added a pic to my gallery so you can see what they look like.
Mine are Sulcatas, the largest mainland tortoises, the really giant ones are island species coming from the Galapagos or Seychelles.

Okay Marvin, so if I build the beds and leave the bottoms open like I plan to the roots will have plenty of room to meander and the foliage will be protected from the perpetrating terrapins.

Maybe I'll go a bit larger than 5' x 3', it seems like a box that size could contain 5 or 6 mature plants?

Thanks everyone

Ray

Re: Bananas in raised beds
 

RV - those are awesome! where the heck do you buy soemthing like that? I didn't look at your avatar but I'm guessing you live somewhere warm? Thanks for the pic.

Re: Bananas in raised beds
 

BlownZ,
I've had them for over 20 years and they routinely lay eggs.
I don't typically incubate them because they get problematically large for most people.
There are lots of them out there and there is probably someone near you that has them.

I'm in Northern California about 35 miles from San Francisco.
They are outside from March through October .
They can handle a bit of cold but not cold and wet.

They love Bananas and banana leaves.

Ray

Re: Bananas in raised beds
 

wow thats pretty neat! they sound happy living at your place then. I would figure they would like the leaves HaHA

Re: Bananas in raised beds
 

Here are some examples of Bananas in raised beds, with flood water, they become little islands. The main thing is that it keeps the bananas alive and the roots in an unsaturated zone.





:2239:

Re: Bananas in raised beds
 

Can you use the shell mounds ?

Re: Bananas in raised beds
 

Good evening Toni,

If you owned it, sure, a little charcoal, potting soil,and mulch. The shell mounds are very alkaline and Bananas do not like that. I have four loads of shell I'm spreading now, to raise certain areas of the property. I also have a local soil as fill and I use them both to level pH as much as raise the level in flooded areas. :2239:

Re: Bananas in raised beds
 

Caloosamusa,

I understand what your up against with those swampy conditions an all. Best of luck with the raised areas.

Re: Bananas in raised beds
 

Thanks Dean,

Usually we only get these conditions at the height of the rainy season or after a hurricane, but this El Nino year has been very unusual! :2239: