Have you ever questioned yourself if you could grow a banana plant in your backyard? In this article we will teach you exactly what you need and how.

Bananas are the most consumed and loved fruit throughout the world, with presence in pretty much every single supermarket and convenience store. A healthy good tasting fruit, which can grow easily and produce a plentiful harvest year-round, sounds like a great the perfect combination to have in your backyard. Another reason why banana plants are an ideal choice for growing comes in the form of its beauty. With long leaves and tropical aspect, this plant is sought after to make a garden or property stand out and give it a Caribbean or beach vibe.

Although the prospect of having a banana plant in your backyard sounds like a great idea, it certainly isn’t easy at first, starting by the fact that commercially planted bananas don’t contain seeds. Throughout time bananas have been modified to the point where every single banana in commercial farms are identical to each other. Having a fruit that is genetically identical to each other has many benefits, such as making sure that the taste is always the same, shipping and handling can be standardized, and every single step of the product chain can be highly specialized. With many benefits come the downside of having to find a way to reproduce the plant in your own home, so the first step of the process is finding out how to plant a banana tree. But before this first step a very crucial aspect has to be analyzed: is the climate and soil conditions ideal for banana plants?

Bananas can’t grow in every single climate, for example in winter conditions the fruit will stop growing and there is high possibility that the plant will die. On the other hand, if the climate is composed of high temperatures with a dry climate, such as a dessert, the leaves will start to burn and the plant will not grow properly. Therefore, make sure that the temperature of is between 26-30 Celsius during the daytime, and at nighttime the temperature won’t drop below 20 Celsius. The humidity is also a highly important factor which must be at least 50% and as constant as possible. Finding the best possible spot in the garden is crucial as well as banana plants require a lot of sunlight, with ideal numbers ranging at about 12 hours per day for optimal growth. As a last measure before starting with the planting steps, the soil must have good drainage as banana plants can easily rot if water stagnates is the soil.

The first step to planting your banana plant is finding a grower that sells a banana sucker, which is basically a small shoot that comes out from the banana plant base. A hole one foot wide and one foot deep must be dug, making sure that it’s not near any plant as banana need space to grow, therefore the recommended distance is to keep bananas 15 feet from any other tree. Once planted, the plant must be trimmed, making sure to cut away any section that is dead, eaten by insects, or rotting. Also, removing most of the roots of the sucker can avoid diseases, leaving ideally about 1-2 inches of root before planting. Next step is to fill the hole with a soil that is between pH 5.5 and 7, as an acidic soil can kill the plant. After filling the hole place fertilizer around the plant evenly.

Taking care of the banana plant is as crucial as planting it in the correct way. Every single month the plant must be fertilized with about 0.25-0.5lbs for young plants and 1.5-2lbs for adult plants. Watering is also necessary, but a balance is highly important as little water will kill the plant but a lot of water will make it rot. Depending on the climate it must be watered every single day or within bigger intervals, to gauge this you must analyze how dry the soil is and how long water takes to drain. Another step that can help the banana is to place dead leaves on the base of it, a practice common in commercial plantation in

which workers through the cut banana plant onto the ground so that, as it decomposes, the nutrients go back to the soil.

As the plant continues to grow you must keep an eye out for discoloration of the leaves, dying leaves, and any insects or pests that is present of the plant. Some of the most common problems that a plant can have are nitrogen deficiency which is characterized by pale or pinkish leaves, and potassium deficiency which is characterized by orange or yellow leaves which can also be broken.

Just as your banana plant was planted from a sucker, these will start to grow and the best practice is to cut them all except one to improve the growth of the plant. Another special consideration is to help the trucks of the banana plant stay straight by tying them with ropes or adding a support such as wooden planks.

Once the banana fruit starts coming out a standard practice in commercial banana plantations is to cover the banana bunch with a bag which helps the fruit remain in a perfect condition. Another critical aspect is to remove dying fruit and any other part of the plant that might have adverse effects on the fruit.

Once the fruit starts becoming yellow it is ready to be harvested and consumed. In commercial plantations the banana is harvested before ripening, or green, with the intended purpose of surviving the worldwide shipping process.

Some people are firm believer that home grown bananas taste much sweater and are healthier than commercially produced bananas. Others argue that due to their genetics, in theory, they should taste exactly the same. One thing is for sure, growing your own bananas is a huge journey, and tasting the fruits of your labor taste unlike anything else.

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