Watch This BEFORE You Grow Bananas 🍌

You can grow bananas in more climates than you think! Kevin shares how he turned his backyard into a banana haven, sharing all the unconventional tips and tricks he learned over the past 18 months.

IN THIS VIDEO

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TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Intro
00:45 - Understanding Banana
01:45 - Location, Temp, Wind & Space Issues
03:14 - Planting & Soil
05:35 - Managing Growth
06:55 - Flowering To Harvest
10:01 - Storage
10:45 - Maintaining The Cycle

DISCLAIMER

[blossomvalleylife]

I have over 100 banana plants currently growing! It has been so fun watching your journey of learning how to grow banana plants! I remember talking to you at one of the seed events and telling you I am the one who keeps messaging you about how to grow the bananas! It is definitely a process but once you learn it is so easy. We love using the machete to chop the bananas down. We cut the trunks in half and place the inner side against the soil so they break down faster. Using the leaves and the flowers in cooking is fun too. Our freezer is always full of mashed bananas to use in muffins, breads, and smoothies. And the best part is how beautiful they look in my tropical food forest!

[dasl.]

Kevin, hate to break it to ya, but your banana isn't a Blue Java. It's a similar looking variety called Dwarf Namwa, and it's often mislabeled by retailers. Namwa is often considered a better variety for growing and eating, so it's more common and even sold in Asian markets as Thai bananas. Even so, your bunch looks absolutely gorgeous, and I've no doubt it'll taste leagues better than store-bought ones!

I suggest reaching out to the San Diego branch of California Rare Fruit Growers, one of their members is a banana specialist and has real Blue Java bananas. He's got some other cool varieties occasionally available, like Praying Hands, White Iholena, or Pisang Klotek!

[LazyLoonLazarus]

I hope you and your team are doing okay with the fires in California right now! 🥺

[jvalfin]

Me watching from the Nordics near the Arctic circle:
"Mm. I need to take notes."

[EwaldCloete]

Hey Kevin!

Absolutely love watching your videos and learning from them. We live on the South Coast of South Africa in a sub-tropical climate and grow many different varieties of bananas on our homestead. Over the years we’ve done lots of experiments with our bananas to find the best way to grow them and get the biggest yield. The 2 most important things we’ve discovered is that banana circles are definitely the best way to group your bananas. We basically fill them with as much natural material as we can get our hands on, and this is still sometimes not enough, this is apart from the trimming of the excess leaves and trunks we also feed into it. They are very hungry plants. Growing the bananas around the edge and making them root into the center of the circle has sped up our production with about 4-6 months per plant. Growing them 2m (6ft) apart is definitely an important part, but we tend to plant a bit denser with about 1.5m (4.5-5ft) just to have a few more plants. The other thing we do is to keep 4 members of the family, Grandma, Mom, Daughter and granddaughter. We’ve found that having the extra member growing sooner tends to get more yield in a shorter time.

Would love to visit your homestead one day and get some in-person lessons! ❤from 🇿🇦

[allisonguillen]

Been waiting 18 months for you to get to this point so I can learn from you on how to grow them. Thank you for your expertise, I feel confident now I can try my hand at growing them.

[therufflife]

I'm up the road from you and this spring I'm putting in 20 varieties of banana circles (100 bananas total), 8 avocado varieties for year-round picking, 2 kinds of loquats, plus many others. It's a HUGE food forest. I open a micro farm/nursery this spring. I should have you tour it sometime. We also have a 50 ft by 30 ft by 18 ft greenhouse with a 4000 gallon pond in the center of it (I have 8000 gallons of sandponics I'm putting together, just need the tilapia and channel catfish colonies to get large enough), also have a huge raised bed space surrounded by a 30 fruit tree orchard though about half of them are 4 in 1 varieties so there's probably like 60 varieties total. Plus I have 9 3ft wide rows 42ft lomg for in ground planting. Finally I'm doing a 1000 sqft area of pumpkins this may.

[crystalrejman]

When we grew them in oklahoma, before the cold snap, just cut the leaves off, dug them up, and left the soil on the roots and stored them in the basement. Replanted them in the spring.

[nonameflameokmommy]

9:43 LMAOO bro got sent into romance with his bananas 😂🔥

[SarahTrettMylittleeden]

I find eating up all the bananas tricky as it is a famine and feast affair! Mine got damaged snapped due to a storm just before Christmas and all ripened on Christmas day the one day I really didn't need any more to eat! I had to cut and put in freezer bags and freeze on boxing day! I don't have many good sunny areas in my garden (all trees) so mine are packed in and still fruiting well for me... probably too well! I have another bunch I am slowing down by leaving the flower on. Also homegrown seems to taste much more creamy (regardless of variety) maybe because I have never cut the flower off? Beautiful bunch there Kevin well done.

[csmitty]

Kevin, you can eat the banana flower. Marinated and seasoned it has a texture like pulled pork. Great for tacos

[huzbum]

I just harvested my first bananas last year. I've tried a few varieties, but "Ice Cream" Blue Java is the only one that would grow for me in my less than ideal conditions in NW Escondido. My yard was basically regolith when I started, so I put in a banana circle. Basically a crater with a mound around it, then fill the middle with compost and plant the bananas in the mound. I struggled to water them well enough, so I put in drip and that did the trick. I've seen people say Taro does well inside the banana circle, so I might try that.

I harvested them one hand at a time starting at the top, putting them in a paper bag for a few days. Worked great and spread out the harvest. They did have a hint of vanilla and a fluffy texture like people say they do.

[WDWormsnGarden]

I really miss growing bananas. The only way to grow it here is in a greenhouse. I learned something new. In Jamaica, we usually just let all the sucker's remain unless we are farmers and not gardeners. I've never noticed that some sucker's were different from others. Thanks for sharing.

[laxlyfters]

These plants are awesome you can use the leaves to wrap tamales lookup guatemalan tamales and the violet colored banana blossom is also edible there is a delicious vietnamese salad you can make with it 😋

[fuzzypumpkin]

Me living in Indiana with a tiny tiny yard still watching this video. I do have a dwarf cherry tree, but that's about all the trees I can have.

[RockandCheese]

*Me saving this video while living in a desert between mountains with harsh and dry winters* interesting 🤔

[donhorak]

I love the chop and drop. Putting the required elements back into the soil so the mother plant can thrive.

[andrealves]

I am from Madeira island and bananas are super common here, they are very widely produced, and have the best taste! Our climate is just perfect for them and almost all people with backyards have them. We mostly produce the "standard" banana varieties, but we also have bananas de prata (translates to silver bananas) that are smaller and have thinner peels, as well as a unique taste, and "ana roberta" bananas, which produce 50-70kg bunches and are absolute monsters( double the size and thickness of the other varieties). Also I really love your videos and have been watching for the past 4 years!

[GrowsGoneWild]

I know someone growing bananas inside his chicken enclosure. Definitely provides enough nitrogen for the plant.

[Mikehood]

"That's just a little bit of nerdy botany for ya" why does that sound dirty 😂😂