Urban Banana Farms

[robby]

This must be the Banana Belt of San Jose. Everybody else is freezing their ass off and I'm harvesting the January banana crop. I don't think bananas are supposed to grow this far north, but they do.
http://www.geocities.com/robvelour/pictures.htm
I'll admit they are little, but they probably haven't been cultivated in years.

I cut down two bunches, and pruned the red banana flower from the end of four more bunches. I've been told this will make the developing fruit behind the flower grow bigger. I'm also planning on fertilizing the banana grove.

The banana stalks I've cut are indoors, in plastic bags, and I'm hoping they ripen

Comments

[twgan.livejournal.com]

Well, at least you can cook the banana flower if you have no other use for it after.

Re:

[robby.livejournal.com]

How do you cook it? I have 6 right now.

[twgan.livejournal.com]

Uh-oh. I don't cook. And six of them will make you so sick of it, it's ridiculous. Heh.

They tie it in little knots (I suppose to keep it from falling apart while it's cooking) and it's stewed with pork. Weird chinese cooking.

Gee, that wasn't very helpful. I was looking through the net to see if I could throw a recipe at you if it looked like what I've been eating, but I couldn't seem to find anything.

[twgan.livejournal.com]

You know, I suddenly realize I might not be sure about what I'm talking about. I can't quite remember what the fresh flower looks like when you take off the red parts. Been too long since I've paid attention to our banana trees.

(Those yellow strandy things are sold in the supermarket in dried out form, so that's how I usually end up seeing them.)

Re:

[robby.livejournal.com]

See, I didn't know not to eat the red parts. I'll ask the Vietnamese guys that told me to trim off the flowers to help the fruit grow larger. They know how to eat banana flowers, I'll bet.

[twgan.livejournal.com]

Yeah.

I should learn how to cook sometime.

Re:

[robby.livejournal.com]

Those guys want ALL the flowers, and say you soak a part in cold water for 10 minutes and eat it with salt. They say it doesn't taste like banana at all.

[twgan.livejournal.com]

Uh. Eat it with salt. Hm. Curious. Tell me what it's like when you finally get to try it.