Bananas in Northern California?

After seeing some other people in the neighborhood grow bananas, I felt it was time for me to give bananas a try. I have never tried growing bananas and knew that, given the fact that light freezes can damage the plants, it was a relatively risky proposition to even try to grow them in my climate. Still, I felt that I should try to grow them out.

I ordered my plants from Florida and grew them out in the greenhouse, transplanting them out into the garden one at a time, until they all went into the garden. I chose to try growing the Grand Nain – just because these seemed easy in relation to the harvest. I felt I had a good chance of having them make it through the winter if I grew them in full sun, next to a pool, with jugs of water around them.

Transplanting into the garden when the soil is still cold is a risky proposition. However, there is very little that one can do about this sometimes. I can only change the climate around the plants so much. If they do not thrive, then perhaps they are not suited to my location.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One thing I did that made a huge difference was to apply Bacillus subtilis strain QST 713 to the plants. This used to be called Serenade, but the company that made Serenade was bought out by Bayer. It is also available in 1 gallon quantities, made by BioWorks and sold by Arbico Organics. This stuff is a game-changer. It brought one of my dying banana plants back to life and helped to propagate a whole bunch of pups on another banana plant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Overall, I would have to say that Grand Nain bananas do not grow very well in my climate – especially compared to some banana varieties that are a little more cold-tolerant. Temperatures of 33 or 34 will often damage the plants, so it is important to plant them in a place where they will be sheltered from these kinds of temperatures. Still – as they have not all perished, I will work to grow these out for one more year and see what happens.

 

 

Making a framework to protect my banana plants

 

 

Protecting my banana plants from the cold.

The Amazing Taxi Tomatoes in a 10 inch hydroponic basket (in a 5 gallon bucket)

Of all the fool-proof tomato plants that I have grown, I don’t believe that I have ever grown anything that compares with the Taxi tomato. This tomato variety is, by far, the most dummy-resistant variety. It can suffer multiple stress-related injuries to the plant and its roots and still live to produce a decent crop of tomatoes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The tomato plant that I have pictured is in a 10 inch hydroponic basket within a 5-gallon bucket. The plant did extremely well and, given the conditions, produced very nicely. The tomatoes of this variety are ripe when they turn from bright yellow to a more golden-yellow color.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Would I recommend this variety for a container? Yes. There are very few tomato varieties that I believe would truly thrive in a container, but this is definitely one of them.

 

Red Lettuce and Learning about Winter Bolting

So – this is a pretty difficult subject for me to address mainly because the local squirrels ravaged my little lettuce seedlings the same way they did with my Tondo Massafra. Even with barriers, the squirrels worked their way around to eat or dig up most all of the plants I grew.

 

I eventually resorted to grow the lettuce up on the balcony in pots, with aluminum foil around each plant to deter the squirrels from digging in them.

Though this mostly did the trick of keeping the squirrels from digging up the plants, they did occasionally still dig in it and the aluminum foil was a mess. Additionally, the aluminum foil also did little to keep the plants moist.

The soil under the foil would become dry from the frequent winds we experienced. These winds were so constant, that they wicked a large portion of the moisture from the plants – which stressed the plants enough to cause them to become bitter.

So – putting foil over the soil of potted plants to keep squirrels away is a messy, inconvenient process that is only worthwhile if your plants don’t turn bitter. Perhaps sometime in the future I will grow out lettuce transplants in the greenhouse for putting out into the garden. But only if I can somehow protect them from the squirrels.