Post #248107 by Chip and Andy on Thu, Aug 10, 2006 1:35 PM

On 2006-08-10 12:56, drslingshot wrote:
Chip and Andy,

This is our first bloom, this plant is 4 years old now. Not sure if digging them up makes the bloom slow ? Banana shakes...mmmmmm....sounds good . My wife is ecstatic with the bloom this year.

The flower is so fascinating to watch open. The big flower peels back to reveal teeny-tiny little flowers on teeny-tiny little bananas. Depending on the type of plant it can take up to three months for the fruit to mature enough to eat. It seems like forever, but it is worth the wait!

As the flower opens to reveal the hands of bananas you will eventually get to a point there the little fingerlings just fall off. You can speed the growth of the other bananas by cutting the stalk just below that point. I will dig through my pictures tonight and see if I can find some to share.

--EDIT--

Here are some of the picture from our banana, this is what you have to look forward to with yours:

Here it is again about two weeks later..

See at the bottom of the flower, where the new ity-bity bananas are yellow, they fall off very easily ... from that point down you are not going to get any viable fruit. If you want to eat some bananas, cut the stalk just below the point where those flowers/fuit start to fall off. That will speed the growth of the bananas above the cut.

Who wants a Mai Tai?

[ Edited by: Chip and Andy 2006-08-11 11:15 ]