I was out watering today and found these! YES! God bless short cycle bananas!
Finally! After years of growing and tending these monsters I got some fruit! This is a Dwarf Kokopo “Patupi” banana. This is this plant’s second year. I usually cut the bananas down near our first freeze. Here in San Antonio that’s around Thanksgiving.
This is my first year anything has fruited. I’ve been growing bananas for about five years. I have plans to cut the bulk off of the top of the Gros Michel/Viente Cohol and wrap it in a bunch of fiberglass ceiling insulation, surrounded by a clear plastic tarp to keep the water out. I also plan on putting a strip of heat tape, made for pipes, inside this wrap.
I may not like this idea. I may accidentally cut through the flower within this year’s stalk. That would be the end of that stalk’s usefulness. However I’m also wrapping the surrounding pups. I’m hoping that these have an opportunity to have more than one season of growth (before they hit thirty feet!) I will be putting out a tutorial for the winter wrap and then a page of my experiences with getting bananas to fruit, in a single season, in San Antonio.
The fence behind this bed is a 6 foot fence. The Gros Michel and what I was sold as Viente Cohol (with this height I don’t think that’s what this is.) are not fruiting yet and we have a freeze coming this month.
Hopefully these Kokopo bananas fill in before our first freeze. I have heard that pruning the fruit back to just a few hands speeds the process. (I’m so greedy for fruit, I’m not certain that I will prune. I’ll do more research.) The Patupi should fill within forty days. I don’t have forty days. Once these come up to our first frost: I’ll cut them down and bring them into the garage to finish ripening. I am considering removing the root system of these giant, nonproductive bananas and try to order a Viente Cohol that I am sure is actually the right variety.
If you would like an expert opinion on growing short cycle bananas, I recommend this blog: https://www.bananapups.com/short-cycle/ I actually just found this site today. There are so many bloggers that blog about bananas, but don’t give you all the information you need. Look into the blog above. Great, complete info!
I really didn’t think I could accomplish getting fruit in a single season. Whoo hoo for bananas in San Antonio!
I am so excited!
Meet you out in the garden to harvest our bananas!
Crazy Green Thumbs
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bananas… how cool!
Definitely took a while! I’m excited to taste these. My home grown pineapples were amazing! Good to see you this morning!
Splendid! The Kokopo / Patupi banana here is still in a #1 can. We got it for the same reason, to hopefully get fruit within the limited growing season. Frost here is minimal, and does not damage banana foliage much, but the weather is cool enough to inhibit growth until spring. Fruit that is not ripe by now will not finish for a few months, and by that time, it tastes like soft potatoes. What is worse is that most of the two dozen or so cultivars here are not short cycle cultivars. Some produce bananas if they start early, but, as you know, they start whenever they want to, with no regard for the following autumn.
Bananas are so finicky! I read on bananas. Org that someone thought the Kokopo fruit tastes like sweet potato. I sure hope not. I can grow sweet potatoes easily. Getting bananas to fruit for me was a ton of work!
Finicky?! They grow like weeds here. Do you mean that the fruit is finicky?
I have a raised hugelkulter bed that they are in here. I’ve got the most robust bananas that I’ve seen in my area. They don’t like my soil. They won’t fruit when it’s too hot. They won’t fruit when it’s cool. They freeze down to the roots every winter. I have a high fertilizer regimen for them (Huge nitrogen and then potassium needs). They take a ton of water. I have to completely cut them down every fall. I’ve got to clean up all sucker’s because they won’t make it through winter so they are just drawing energy from the main plant. It’s an investment to try and grow them in San Antonio. There’s a mail order flower nursery in California that I get plants from, occasionally. Every one of them dies here. I think we are on different planets when it comes to growing conditions. I’m glad they grow well for you.