We now have three clumps of bananas. The biggest one, and the only one to flower so far, produces little apples. No, really, that’s what they call them. They are short, fat, sweet little bananas, and the local name in Spanish is manzanitas, which translates as little apples. But that is not what they make manzanita tea from, that comes from a different sort of plant altogether. But still nothing to do with apples.
Here is a picture of the papery flowers, each at the end of a new little banana. The purple sheath that encloses the newborn bananas makes a dramatic visual impact against the broad green leaves of the plant. As you can see from the photo, we have a coconut palm that took root near the base of the banana plants. Before we bought this place that was one of the few spots on the property to be watered regularly during the dry season — the coconut was one of four left there to root, with the apparent intention of replanting them elsewhere. When we found them, this one was too large to move, but we transplanted two others, and the fourth never sprouted.
Manzanita bananas with flowers
When we were here in May I cut some tree branches, browned banana leaves, and raked up some leaves from the fig tree to start a little compost pile. When we came back in October, there was a banana plant growing out of the middle of that pile. Not sure how that got there, or exactly what kind of bananas we will get from it, but I bet they grow faster than the ‘2nd clump’ as I call them.
The 2nd clump were just out of reach of the water hose when we came in May (I brought a longer hose this time!), and it has not gotten any fertilization. It did grow over the rainy season, but has yet to produce any fruit. The soil is very black, but mostly clay, and while some weeds grow prolifically, the bananas are lacking something in their nutrients needed for producing fruit.
The clump of plants in the photo get fish, chickent bones and other such goodies for fertilizer. Anything we can’t compost that is biodegradable, we bury in little holes, about 15 cm wide and 40 cm deep, with the top half of the hole filed with back-dirt, so they are too deep for the stray cats to dig them back up. Our first batch of holes have been located around that clump of bananas, about a meter away from the plant. One more such hole and we will move on to the 2nd clump.