jewelbaby1224

Hi,
I haven't gotten to enjoy the "fruits" of my trees yet but since I have so many leaves, etc from a recent storm. "Do any of you know what can be done with the leaves/fiber in the way of crafting (matts, baskets, paper etc) or mulching?

I want all of my banana material to be useful and not go to the landfill!!

Let's please hear your ideas!!!!

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WHEREVER YOU GO, BRING YOUR OWN SUNSHINE....

momoese

While there are many things can be made from banana leaves, I think the best use for them is in the making of compost, and shredded up and placed around the top of the soil to help maintain the temps and moister.

MediaHound

Speaking of compost, I love my new Urban Garden Center compost tumbler! It finally arrived a few days ago, baking some good compost as we speak
http://www.urbangardencenter.com/pro...ct9/index.html

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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.

D'Andra

Lookin' good there Mediahound!

I throw mine in my earthworm bins and let them make my compost. We have about 20#'s of worms and they can compost about 10+#'s a day! The castings are working great as fertiziler in my house plants!
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D'.

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D'.

momoese

It's said that worm castings will help keep the white fly population at bay when applied to house plants!

jewelbaby1224

I really would like to do something creative with my banana leaves and would love how-to's.

I'll be cutting them back soon and I will have a ton of of material. Where do you start in cutting this stuff up for compost? ie: I actually cut all the trunks back to the ground after the first freeze and the trunks are huge!

Using the advice from you all in dividing, fertilizing and composting we now have 3 large banana areas and my original big banana trees have grown way past their normal 12' height.

__________________
WHEREVER YOU GO, BRING YOUR OWN SUNSHINE....

JoeReal

We have tons of uses for green untorn leaves. We wrap a lot of food in banana leaves in a lot of recipes.

The dried leaves can be used for winter protection at the base of the plants. But if your winters are mild as in zone 10 then it will not help at all.

The brown dried leaves, they are good packing materials for mangoes and other fruits.

If you don't have other fruits, then off the compost bin they go. Banana leaves are one of the easiest to compost.

mikevan

Many foods can be wrapped in nanner leaves when you cook/bake/steam them. Give it a Google for recipes and methods. You can also use spent pseudostems in your imu too if you happen to be having a luau...

Be well,
Mike

JoeReal

plus, most edible banana cultivars have very weak leaves that are never worthy of making them into mats or hats. When we were kids, we sometimes weave them into mats or hats for practice or temporary use during picnics, and weave them also to carry water, or for fancy hats but it is used only for the day. Very good for playing.


You can also use them to wax the iron when ironing clothes. Simply press the iron over the banana leaves until it becomes shiny and the flat iron will slide easily through during ironing.

When using banana leaves as wrappers for food and other purposes, you can make them very strong by passing the green leaves over flame or burner flame so that they change into waxy darker color. It makes them pliable and more resistant to tearing off.

And still, in some cultivars like the saba, you can use the tender young leaves as vegetables.

MediaHound

I have a 10 horsepower chipper that I use to chip up branches and palm fronds, and other etc. hard stuff. That goes in a pile to be used as browns for the composter. Softer things, like dry banana leaves, pseudostems, assorted fruit byproducts and other organic kitchen waste, I cut up with scissors or a machete and put them right in the compost barrel. The pseudostems are really good because they're extremely moist, so they'll also go right in, but chopped into managable sizes. It's amazing how fast the compost barrel I recently got eats through material.
May I recommend this manual -

It's chock-full-of great info about composting and will surely get you more the wiser when it comes to it.
You can find it on Amazon.com for a penny + shipping.

I'm thinking about getting an under the sink kich'n komposter to hook up to my disposal, too.


...not to deviate too far from the topic, though

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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.