JoeReal

I'd like to invite you all to a presentation that I am going to give to Santa Clara Valley California Rare Fruit Growers. This is also open to the public or non-members ($5 entrance for non-members). I'll be talking about bananas and how to grow them successfully in the Bay Area and the inland Valley of California. The meeting place will be at Emma Prusch Park, 647 King Road, San Jose 95116. Between 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm, Saturday, August 12, 2006.

I will be giving away one big Dwarf Brazilian banana plant that is ready for planting in the ground and would likely bear fruit next year if you planted it in the right location. The plant will be raffled to all interested attendees. Dwarf Brazilian is pseudostem cold hardy to zone 9.

Here's the tentative outline for my talk:

Growing Bananas

Short history
Banana cultivars

commercially grown bananas and the big banana cultivar hype
bananas the rest of the non-western world enjoys
6 major groups of bananas
common uses of bananas
different colors
different sizes (1 ft tall to 65 ft tall bananas)
different taste
influence of climate
cold hardiness

Pests and Diseases

Objectives of growing

ornamental purposes
fruiting and ornamental effect

Cold hardy types

diferent measures of cold hardiness
Inland Valley Northern California
Bay Area

General care and requirements

fertilizer, mulches, drainage, irrigation, cold protection

Tips to growing and fruiting in zone 9

Minimum requirements for hardiness
Microclimate and preferred location in your yard
Protection against the cold snap and arctic blast
General care during winter, spring and summer
Increasing chances of fruiting
Increasing fruit yield
Increasing fruit size
Uses of the male banana blossom
Care after fruiting

Advanced tips to growing in zone 8 and below

Surviving
The challenge of producing fruits in colder zones

Propagation

different types of pups
encouraging pup production
pup separation how and when
corm propagation
tissue cultured plantlets
banana seeds
transporting, packaging, shipping

Bananas in my backyard, a small tour
My yard experimentations
Sources of bananas in the USA

California Nurseries
recommended online stores
eBay
other CRFG members

MediaHound

Wow, Joe, thats great.
Congrats on your speaking arrangement

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Apologies in advance if I am slow to reply to your PM. I suggest posting in the forums for support if you need something urgent.

GATrops

Hey Joe,

Wish I could make it. Any chance you might be willing to repeat at the CRFG Festival in September in San Luis Obispo? I finally made up my mind to go the meeting and am very excited about it.

Anyone else out there going to the September meeting?

Richard

momoese

Hey Joe, could you please speak about how to grow bananas in So Cal. I could use some help. lol

JoeReal

thank you people for the nice compliments!

You guys perhaps know more about bananas than me. Although I have raised bananas in the tropics, I would be relating my experiences the specific differences and uniqueness of growing them in our zone. As much as I would like to go down there and talk (actually more like slide shows), I'm fully booked till the end of this year, all my weekends are gone! Hopefully next year, when I have more bananas to give for free.

Mike Lee

That's terrible scheduling for me. I'd have dragged half our CRFG chapter down to hear you, Joe. I'm sure that your experience growing in such a similar climate zone would have been just what we needed to learn! Unfortunately, we have a summer scion exchange at the same time this Saturday.

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Mike Lee
Forestville, CA Zone 9