Protecting The ‘Naners

So, I ordered some fruit bags, from Amazon, for my bananas. They are lined on one side with cotton to trap the ethelene gas (ethelene gas helps make fruit ripen quickly.) The cotton also helps with humidity and shades the fruit from the sun. They have holes in them, so the fruit can breathe. They say the bags are reusable.

These bags are really thin. I’m not sure I will be able to remove them and reuse them, but we’ll see. You are supposed to leave the bottom of the bag open, but these are so low to the ground I think that would just invite rodents to snack on them. Plus, it’s fall. They aren’t going to overheat in there.

Since this is the first year I’ve gotten fruit, I am paying close attention to them. Depending on how they taste: I may cut most of my other varieties of bananas out and only grow the Patupi/Kokopo variety.

I lost all of my persimmons this year when I was out of town. They were not ripe, so I thought I had more time. Something ate them a month or more before I would, so I’m putting fencing around that tree next year. Non astringent persimmons are one of the most excellent tasting fruits you can grow in San Antonio.

Anyway, with the loss of the persimmons I was going to make darn sure those critters didn’t get into the bananas. After I bagged them with the special banana bags: I put a support in the bunch, made from the pvc pipe shade cloth cage that I took down from around the cherries. I don’t know if the way I did this was smart, but it’s 90 degrees during the day and 60 at night right now. I was hot and miserable out there today (and I still intend to bake some sourdough bread later tonight.) I didn’t want to get too hot, but I wanted to work on this during the day so I could see what I was doing.

The bananas are beginning to turn upwards, which is part of the ripening process. From flower to harvest: I am looking at about 40 days, with this variety.

I don’t know exactly when this flower formed. I’ve missed some time in the garden this year.

A couple of weeks ago my mother in law found out (after having her hip replaced), that at 88 that she has stage 3 hodgekins lymphoma. Her doctors knew that she had cancer (and didn’t tell her) and pushed her to get the new hip joint. She found the diagnosis on her own, going through her medical paperwork. This would not be as advanced as it is, if her doctors were not completely incompetent and had begun treatment when they found it. It’s supposedly a cancer that can be “easily” treated. I sure hope so.

It’s like our family cannot catch a break. We’re hopeful with the treatments my mother in law will be getting. Also, my stepmother is in the final stage of Frontotemporal dementia. It is fatal. We are, unfortunately, entering into some difficult times.

I’m going to guess we’re about one to two weeks into flowering. That means I only have a few weeks more to go. We usually freeze around Thanksgiving, but that can shift weeks either way, depending on what is going on in the world of weather.

As you can see from the photos these bananas are definitely not ripe enough to pull yet. However, getting them to the stage where they round out, will tell me it’s time to try to ripen them the rest of the way in the garage. They will be outside until we freeze.

I hope to see you in the garden soon, to try my new bananas!

Crazy Green Thumbs