Self-sufficient-farm diary #2: Bananas

In the last post I described the base situation that we are in. So today contributed my first bigger addition to the finca.

I expanded the already existing banana plantages with a new kind. They were a gift from our neighbors, who are cultivating a lot of fruits. This variety is characterized by a really sweet taste within a really tiny fruit. They grow exactly like all other varieties, which is as follows:

Banana plants create babies at the very bottom of the "trunk", that will become their own palm shortly. It is not very hard cutting those babies of and relocating them, so that is exactly what we did. We got gifted six plants.

Tip: Plant or relocate your plants about three days after a full moon. Like raising the oceans creating tides the moon also affects the fluids within a plant, resulting in better growth and making it easier for the migrated plants to get build up a sufficient water supply.






First I mowed the lawn and kept the cut grass on the side and dug holes about three meters apart. The way the bananas reproduce creates a circle of palms, that grows each year, which will be having a diameter of one and a half meters already after just two or three years. The spot, where they will be living is closed of by a row of trees giving them protection from wind, because bananas are no masters of stability and tend to fall over frequently. Inside the hole I dug, I put a mixture of charcoal, urine and bokashi as a fertilizer. We make ours with organic waste from the kitchen. You take the waste, put it in a air disclosed container and add "Embiosa A".
After watering and putting the cut grass around the plants to hinder the new grass of growing right next to my babies, the only thing left to do was to wait about nine months. That is the time a banana takes until the first harvest.

finished result :)

As you just read: Banana growing is not hard at all. In fact, bananas are the most easiest plant to cultivate, at least that is what I think. What do you think? I even read, that it is possible to grow a banana in a pot on your balcony. Tere are small varieties specifically for this purpose like this one. So why don`t just try it out.


*Disclaimer: Some of the links used on this site are amazon refferals, meaning that I get a promotion, when someone buys something over this link!

Location: Costa Rica

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