Many may think that bananas are actually trees. Actually, these are considered perennial herbs that are abundantly grown in most tropical areas. Tropical areas?
But what if you would like to grow bananas at home so you can reap the fruits of your labor?
What are the things you need to know to learn how to grow bananas?
Where to Get Your Baby Banana Tree?
The first step that would get you started in learning how to grow bananas is to learn where to get them.
You can do this easily on the Internet since most sites have catalogs for these things, and you simply click on your pick.
You would see that there are offers on baby banana trees, banana rhizomes, or suckers. It would be solely up to your preferences on what to start out with.
If you do not really have any notion of learning how to grow bananas, it would be most appropriate to get yourself those baby banana trees that are planted already in pots or containers.
Where Can Your Tree Grow?
Choose a suitable location. Most of the pro gardeners would probably advise beginners to plant bananas in a place where there is ample sun exposure.
Why? Typically, bananas need around twelve hours of sun exposure every day to help them grow.
The location should also be easy to protect from other harmful things like insects or birds.
The type of soil is also important. You may need light and well-drained soil for this.
How to Take Care and Grow Your Tree?
If you purchased a banana rhizome or sucker, you need to make a hole in the soil by digging about a foot for both its depth and its width in the soil. Then, plant your banana, and cover it with the surrounding soil or dirt.
If you have a baby banana tree in a container, just plant it in the soil just like any plant placed in containers.
It’s very important to keep the surrounding area of your banana free from weeds. Mulch the soil to help keep the weeds away.
Before you water your banana, be sure to add fertilizer. You can water this whenever you notice the soil gets dry. But do not drown the soil and avoid having standing water around the tree.
When your banana has grown to about 3/4ths in height, and you notice some banana suckers at the base, remove these immediately.
But don’t remove them all. Leave one sucker to make it grow in the next few years.
The time to reap may take some time. You will know when it is time to harvest when you notice that the bananas are plump and round, and also would not have ribs anymore.
They will actually be green in color. But when you remove them from the tree, you will see that they will ripen on their own.
You can choose to harvest them individually or by the bunch.
After harvesting, it is pertinent to cut the tree down. That single sucker you left before will continue to grow and become a new tree that will give you more of those delicious bananas to enjoy.
Another important point to bear in mind in learning how to grow bananas is that it takes about ten to fifteen months for the trees to have bananas.
But after months of waiting, and if you follow all the simple steps, you are sure to be happy with the produce that your plant will be able to give you at the end of a long wait.
