- 43 minutes ago
Bananas are not a one-and-done crop — they are a family you have to keep alive, and that is the secret this gardening guide explains from start to finish. The lesson begins with the biggest mistake growers make: planting bananas in the wrong climate, since frost can kill them and cool temperatures stop fruiting. From there, it covers choosing an eating variety, finding a sheltered spot, giving each plant room, and planting high on a rich mound so the roots never sit in wet soil.
The practical banana growing advice continues with heavy feeding, especially compost and well-rotted manure, plus the careful removal of the wrong suckers so the strongest pup can carry the line forward. You also learn how to recognize the flower bell, when to cut it back, and why bananas should be harvested green once the ridges round out. The fruit then ripens off the plant in a cool, shaded place, while the spent stalk is cut down and returned to the mound as feed for the next generation.
Created for viewers searching for banana plant care, tropical fruit gardening, backyard banana growing, container bananas, and practical home gardening tips. It is especially useful for anyone looking for a clear banana growing guide, fruit tree and plant care advice, or old-fashioned homestead gardening wisdom with a focus on feeding, pups, harvest timing, and keeping bananas productive year after year.
The practical banana growing advice continues with heavy feeding, especially compost and well-rotted manure, plus the careful removal of the wrong suckers so the strongest pup can carry the line forward. You also learn how to recognize the flower bell, when to cut it back, and why bananas should be harvested green once the ridges round out. The fruit then ripens off the plant in a cool, shaded place, while the spent stalk is cut down and returned to the mound as feed for the next generation.
Created for viewers searching for banana plant care, tropical fruit gardening, backyard banana growing, container bananas, and practical home gardening tips. It is especially useful for anyone looking for a clear banana growing guide, fruit tree and plant care advice, or old-fashioned homestead gardening wisdom with a focus on feeding, pups, harvest timing, and keeping bananas productive year after year.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Here's a thing that surprises most folk.
00:02A single banana plant is not really one plant at all, but a family, a grandmother, and a mother, and
00:09a daughter,
00:10living and dying and being born again in the same spot, season after season, forever,
00:16if only you understand how to tend the family.
00:20And here is the harder truth folk learn too late,
00:23that one banana stalk you worked all season to grow will fruit exactly once,
00:28and then it is finished, done, and will never bear again.
00:33Kill it or fail to raise up its daughter and you have ended the whole line.
00:37So growing bananas is not like growing a tomato you plant and pull.
00:42It is the keeping of a family across the years.
00:46Now, I will tell you plainly, this is not a Lancaster County crop.
00:50Bananas are a warm country plant, and I share this for those of you in the warm places
00:56or growing one in a big tub or a greenhouse.
00:59But the wisdom of it, the feeding and the tending and the keeping of the cycle,
01:04is the same wherever it grows.
01:06And today I am going to show you how to grow bananas,
01:10and above all, how to keep that family coming year on year.
01:14Let me show you.
01:16Here is the thing to understand first,
01:18for it governs where and whether your bananas grow at all.
01:22A banana is a hot country plant through and through,
01:26wanting heat and moisture and not abiding the cold.
01:29The cold is the great killer, so hear the numbers plainly.
01:34Near any banana dies at freezing.
01:36At 32 degrees, the frost is death to it.
01:39And even the hardier kinds stop making fruit once it drops much below the mid-50s.
01:45So before you plant a single one, reckon honestly with your climate.
01:50If you get a hard frost, a banana in the open ground will die,
01:54and you must grow it in a tub you can bring in, or a greenhouse, or not at all.
02:00Heat is everything to a banana.
02:02That is the first truth.
02:04Now let me give you the choosing and the growing.
02:07Quick word before we go further.
02:09My name is Esther Yoder, and the old household ways handed down to me,
02:14the kind I am sharing today, and a great many more besides,
02:17are far more than I could ever fit into one video.
02:20I have gathered the whole of them into a book,
02:23and you will find it at EliasYoder.com.
02:26If today's tips serve you,
02:28that is where the rest of what my mother and grandmother taught me lives,
02:32all in the one place.
02:33Now, to the bananas.
02:36My grandmother had a saying that fits this exactly,
02:39though she said it of the orchard and the berry patch,
02:42that you do not plant for yourself, you plant for your granddaughter.
02:46She meant that the growing things worth having
02:49are the ones tended across the generations,
02:52set in by one hand and kept up and passed on,
02:55so that the fruit a woman eats was planted by her grandmother's care,
02:59and the tree she plants is for a child not yet born.
03:03And the banana, living as a family of grandmother and mother and daughter,
03:08is the very picture of that wisdom made into a single plant.
03:12So here is her kind of generation keeping,
03:15given to the banana,
03:16from the choosing to the keeping of the line.
03:19First, the choosing,
03:21for not every banana will give you fruit,
03:23and folk go wrong at the very start.
03:25You will see fancy sorts,
03:27the red ones and the ornamental ones that look a wonder,
03:31but hear me,
03:32many of those are grown only for their looks
03:34and will never give you a banana worth eating,
03:37or any at all.
03:38So for fruit,
03:40choose a tried and true eating kind,
03:42the common sweet sort,
03:43of which a dwarf kind is good for a backyard or a tub.
03:47And if you are in a cooler place,
03:49seek out one of the few hardier kinds bred to bear in less heat.
03:54Choose an eating variety,
03:55not a looking one.
03:57That first choice decides whether you ever eat a banana at all.
04:01Now the location,
04:02for beyond the heat,
04:03two more things will make or break it.
04:06The first is wind.
04:07A banana's great leaves are tender,
04:09and a windy spot shreds them to ribbons.
04:12The plant survives it,
04:14but is weakened and unsightly.
04:15So plant your banana in a sheltered spot,
04:18out of the main path of the wind,
04:20behind a wall or a hedge or other trees,
04:23so its leaves stay whole.
04:24And the second is room,
04:26which folk badly underestimate.
04:29A banana grows enormous,
04:31a single one,
04:32with its fruit spreading wider than a tall man can reach.
04:36So give each one a good six to eight feet of space.
04:39Do not crowd two together,
04:42thinking to save room,
04:43for they will choke each other.
04:45Sheltered from wind and six to eight feet of room,
04:49give it that and it thrives.
04:52Now the planting.
04:53And here is a thing most folk get wrong
04:56and lose a season to.
04:58You plant a banana up on a mound,
05:01not down in a hollow.
05:02For a banana wants rich feeding,
05:05but will not abide sitting in wet,
05:07soggy ground about its base,
05:09which rots it.
05:11So loosen the ground,
05:12then heap up a good mound of compost and rich earth,
05:16and plant the banana up on that mound,
05:19its base a little above the surrounding ground,
05:22so the water drains away and it never sits wet.
05:26And do not bury it too deep.
05:28Set it at the depth it grew before,
05:30no deeper.
05:31Plant it high and draining,
05:34not deep and wet.
05:35That is the planting.
05:37And now the feeding.
05:38The great secret of a good banana,
05:41and where folks starve theirs without knowing.
05:44A banana is one of the hungriest plants there is,
05:47a heavy feeder beyond most anything in the garden,
05:51and it wants feeding on a scale
05:53that seems almost absurd.
05:55So you cannot feed it too much.
05:57Keep heaping compost and rich rotted matter onto that mound,
06:02a bucketful at a time,
06:04building it up as you go.
06:05And above all,
06:07it is hungry for nitrogen.
06:08So here,
06:09the old homestead way is best.
06:12Well-rotted manure,
06:13the aged barnyard manure,
06:15so rich in just what it craves,
06:18worked in and heaped on.
06:20Folk who feed their banana too little
06:22lose near a whole season's growth for want of it.
06:25Feed it absurdly,
06:27with compost and well-rotted manure.
06:29That is the difference between a poor banana
06:32and a grand one.
06:34Now,
06:34once it is fed and growing,
06:36it will shoot up fast into what looks like a great trunk,
06:40though it is not truly a trunk,
06:42but a tight-wrapped bundle of leaf stalks,
06:44a false stem.
06:46And here is where the family begins
06:48and where you must tend it.
06:51Little offshoots start to come up from the base
06:53around the main plant.
06:55These are the pups,
06:56the suckers,
06:57the next generations.
06:59And knowing which to keep and which to cut
07:02is the heart of it.
07:03The good kind comes up with narrow,
07:05sword-like leaves,
07:07from deep and well-rooted.
07:09Those will grow strong and bear fruit,
07:11and you keep one of those.
07:12The other kind comes up with broad leaves,
07:16close to the surface,
07:17poorly rooted,
07:18and those are greedy, false suckers
07:21that drink up the plant's strength
07:23and give little back.
07:24So you cut those off at the base,
07:26even down at the underground root
07:28if they keep returning.
07:30Keep the narrow, sword-leaved pups.
07:32Cut the broad, greedy ones.
07:34That is the tending that keeps the line strong.
07:37Now, the flowering and the fruiting,
07:39the part you have waited for.
07:41In time, a great purplish flower structure comes,
07:45called the bell,
07:46hanging down from the top.
07:47And from it, the bananas form in clusters,
07:50each cluster called a hand,
07:52the very hands you know from the store.
07:54And here is a thing folk miss.
07:57Once you have as many hands set
07:59as the plant can well ripen,
08:01six or eight hands,
08:03you cut off that bell,
08:04the flowering tip below the last hand you want.
08:08Because left on,
08:10it keeps trying to grow more,
08:12spending the plant's strength on flower
08:14instead of swelling and ripening
08:16the bananas you already have.
08:18Cut the bell,
08:19and all that strength goes into your fruit.
08:22Now, how to know when to harvest?
08:24And this surprises folk.
08:26You do not wait for them
08:27to turn yellow on the plant.
08:29If they go full yellow on the stalk,
08:31you have waited too long.
08:33What you watch for
08:34is the bananas plumping up
08:36and their ridges,
08:37those sharp edges down the banana,
08:39beginning to round and smooth out,
08:42and just the first hint of the green paling.
08:45At that point, while still green,
08:47you harvest,
08:48for a banana ripens beautifully off the plant,
08:51and left on too long,
08:53it splits and spoils.
08:55Mind the weight as you cut,
08:57for a full stalk is heavier than you would think,
08:59so have someone hold and support it
09:01as you cut it down.
09:03Then, ripen them off the plant.
09:05Set the cut stalk in a cool, dry, shaded place,
09:08and over four to eight days,
09:10they ripen up sweet and yellow.
09:12To hurry a hand along,
09:14set it in a paper bag with a ripe apple,
09:17whose breath ripens fruit.
09:19Harvest green when the ridges round out,
09:22and ripen in the cool and dark.
09:25Now, here is the keeping of the family,
09:27the most important thing of all,
09:30the thing that turns one banana
09:32into bananas forever.
09:34Remember that the stalk you just harvested from
09:37will never fruit again.
09:38It is spent,
09:39the grandmother of the family,
09:41her work done.
09:42So you cut her down,
09:44and here is the lovely thrift of it.
09:46You chop up that spent stalk
09:48and lay it right back onto the mound
09:50to rot down and feed her children.
09:52And there beside her stands the mother,
09:55the strong pup you kept,
09:56who will bear next season.
09:58And as you clear away the grandmother
10:00and let the mother flourish,
10:02a new pup rises,
10:04the daughter,
10:04who will bear the season after.
10:06So you keep it as a family of three,
10:09always,
10:10the grandmother spending herself,
10:12the mother bearing now,
10:13the daughter coming on.
10:15Keep those three going,
10:16cutting the spent one down
10:18to feed the mound,
10:19and always leaving one good young pup.
10:21And your banana family bears fruit
10:23year after year,
10:25from the one planting,
10:26forever.
10:27That is the whole secret of the cycle.
10:30Now think a moment about
10:31why we came to think of bananas
10:33as a thing that only comes from far away
10:35in a crate,
10:36or a plant you buy
10:37that fruits once and dies,
10:39and you give up,
10:40when in truth,
10:41in a warm place or a tub,
10:43it is a family that feeds you
10:45year on year for the tending.
10:47It is worse than a plot,
10:49for no one had to arrange it.
10:51There is a great trade in the bananas
10:53shipped from across the world,
10:54and none at all in teaching folk
10:56in the warm places
10:57that a well-fed banana
10:59kept as a family
11:00bears forever from one planting.
11:02So the plain old knowing
11:04of feeding a banana absurdly
11:06and keeping its generations going
11:08just stopped being handed down,
11:10because no one profits
11:11by your growing your own forever
11:13from one plant.
11:15The folk who grew them
11:16always tended the family
11:17and fed it from the barnyard
11:19and kept the daughter coming,
11:21and somewhere along the way
11:22we were taught only to buy the crate.
11:24The mending of it,
11:26for those in the warm places,
11:28is heat, absurd feeding,
11:29and the keeping of the family.
11:31You reckon honestly with your cold,
11:34for frost is death,
11:35and grow a fruiting kind,
11:37hardy or dwarf,
11:39in a sheltered spot
11:40with plenty of room.
11:41You plant it high on a rich mound
11:43so it never sits wet,
11:45and you feed it absurdly
11:47with compost and well-rotted manure,
11:49for it is the hungriest of plants.
11:51You keep the narrow,
11:53sword-leaved pups
11:54and cut the broad, greedy ones,
11:56cut the bell once your hands are set,
11:58and harvest green
11:59when the ridges round out,
12:01ripening off the plant.
12:02And above all,
12:04you keep the family of three,
12:05cutting the spent grandmother down
12:07to feed the mound
12:08and always raising up the daughter,
12:10so it bears forever from one planting.
12:13That is how it comes home,
12:15one fed mound,
12:16one kept pup at a time,
12:18the keeping of your own fruit
12:20back in your own hands.
12:21So here is what I would ask of you.
12:24If you are in a warm place,
12:25or have a mind to try one in a tub,
12:28plant yourself a good fruiting banana this season,
12:31and feed it far more than you think it could want,
12:34and keep that first good pup coming,
12:36and then come back and tell me in the comments
12:38how it grew
12:39and whether you kept the family going,
12:41for I do love to hear of a body growing their own
12:44where they were told it could not be done.
12:46And tell me too, while you are there,
12:49your county and your climate,
12:51warm or cold,
12:52for the growing of a banana is all in the climate,
12:55and I learn from every one of you
12:57how it goes where you live.
12:59And if your own mother or grandmother
13:01had a way with the bananas,
13:02or with any tender fruit kept across the years
13:05that I have not named here,
13:07tell me that most of all,
13:09for that is how this goes.
13:10We share what we were given.
13:12I read every comment,
13:14and I learn from you
13:15the way the old women learned from one another
13:18across the fence line,
13:19one season and one generation at a time.
13:24Next time I will show you the old ways
13:26of keeping a fruit going across the generations
13:29the way the old families did,
13:31the taking of cuttings and pups and slips,
13:34and the passing of a good plant from hand to hand,
13:38so that a fruit worth having is never lost,
13:41but kept and shared down the years.
13:44There is a right and an old way
13:47to keep a household in fruit
13:49that runs on tending the family of a plant
13:52across the generations,
13:54rather than buying it new each time.
13:57But this season, if your climate allows,
14:00you start with the one banana.
14:02You give it heat and shelter and room,
14:05plant it high on a rich mound,
14:08feed it absurdly from the compost and the barnyard,
14:12tend its pups and its bell,
14:14and above all, keep its family of three going.
14:17And you will understand,
14:19as my grandmother did,
14:21of all the growing things,
14:22that you do not plant for yourself,
14:24but for your granddaughter,
14:26that a banana is not one plant,
14:29but a family of grandmother and mother and daughter,
14:33living on in the one spot,
14:35and that the whole secret
14:37is to feed it beyond all reason,
14:39and always keep the daughter coming
14:42so the line never ends.
14:44The household kept the plain old way
14:47is the one that remembers to tend a plant
14:49as a family across the generations,
14:52and so is never without its fruit.
14:55And that is a thing we are only just starting to remember.