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Surprise! Bunches of bananas discovered on SE Floral banana plant
By Doreen Tyler
Karen Dauer of Sleepy Eye Floral & Design got a big surprise
recently when she rotated the banana plant in her shop only to
discover, well, bananas.
Before you start thinking, “Yeah, isn’t that what she’s supposed to
find on a banana plant?” consider this: Karen has owned the plant
for three years (it was a couple years old when she bought it) and
all that plant has ever produced is leaves. Plus, it’s been a shop plant
since she got it, living a heated and air-conditioned life so, really,
this whole banana thing shouldn’t be happening.
Come on. Don’t you get it? Minnesota isn’t the tropics, although
our recent weather could well prove otherwise. Bananas aren’t
supposed to grow here. And that is exactly what makes Karen’s
surprise banana crop so much fun. It feasibly should not have
happened. But it did.
“We were shocked,” Karen said of her and her brother, Jerry
Thurston’s, reaction to the bananas. “The side with the bananas had
been turned toward the window so we hadn’t noticed them until I
turned it around. We never dreamed we would get bananas from
that plant.”
The approximately four feet tall plant is currently growing a
first-crop of 17 bananas, the type of mini-bananas you sometimes
find in area grocery stores. According to a website Karen
researched, her banana plant produces a three to four inch banana
that is quite edible, not to mention delicious.
At the Tropical Permaculture
website, Karen learned a lot about
the plant’s production cycle and
how her banana crop could be quite
bountiful before the mother plant
completes its production cycle.
Proof positive is the presence of the
large flower on Karen’s plant.
Before the cycle is complete, that
entire flower will turn into bunches
of bananas. “’…once they start,
they ripen very quickly, faster than
you can eat or use them’,” Karen
read. “Wow.”
Fortunately, Karen said she and
Jerry loves bananas but added she
has no idea what they will do with
them all. “We certainly didn’t
Pictured are the bananas
expect this to happen,” she said.
growing at Sleepy Eye Floral &
Design. When the large purple “We’ll have to wait and see.”
Interestingly enough, Karen read
flower is finished turning into
bananas, the mother plant will bananas can be peeled, cut
lengthwise and frozen for future
die and the baby plants, the
suckers, at the foot of the plant use. “I didn’t know that.” And
Karen Dauer of Sleepy Eye Floral & Design, pictured, and her
brother, Jerry Thurston, floral designer, were surprised recently by
a bunch of bananas growing on a five-year-old banana plant at the
shop. Karen said she never expected to see bananas growing in
the Sleepy Eye shop but she does expect they may well harvest
many bananas before the plant through producing.
neither did Sleepy Eye ONLINE. Guess you learn something new
everyday!
To learn more about growing bananas (or in case you don’t believe
this whole banana thing should have happened), check out
http://www.tropicalpermaculture.com/growing-bananas.html. Take
special note of the section, “How to get started growing bananas”
where it reads “You need a tropical or warm subtropical climate.”
See! Those bananas shouldn’t have happened here! This is Sleepy
Eye, not Belize (which, by the way, is where Karen vacationed in
January 2010)!
And do stop in to Sleepy Eye Floral & Design to check out Karen’s
banana tree and the other interesting plants she keeps on hand.
will take over.
8/2/2011
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