We could get bananas this year but Will We? One thing I hate about our bananas on this home site is they flower late in the season . When I say late in the season I mean about August. Well, it takes about five months of warm weather to mature a banana harvest. So will we get delicious ripe bananas.
If you count on our fingers, five months takes us into January and everyone knows that can be a cold time of the year. And bananas do not like temperatures below 40 degrees. Below 40 degrees bananas start to yellow their leaves. And the leaves are needed to produce sugars that eventually give us sweet ripe banana fruits. Maybe if I am lucky the fruits could be mature enough by December and the weather warmish until that time and I can harvest the somewhat immature but still ready to ripen bananas.
Now I do not expect to lose the planting. Over about 30 years the plants have been killed to the ground but they eventually grow back. But again most years they flower and fruit again by mid summer. Can you protect your crop? Yes but it would take heroics to build and heat a structure when the cold weather arrives. If we do not get a crop this year I will keep on trying like I have done in the past and some years the plants do flower early and I get a crop.
