Over the past week or so I noticed activity on my banana trees.
Actually, bananas aren’t real trees, not even palm trees, even though they are often called banana palms. Bananas are perennial herbs and related (albeit distantly) to gingers and even birds-of-paradise.Wow! It really does look like a bird-of-paradise that just ate something naughty! Let’s look again . . . 
Growing bananas is easy but growing fabulous bananas is another story. They love water and need rich soil, high temperatures and whatever you do, don’t strip off their leaves because they also need shade. I have heard that they like chicken manure so I plan to feed them as the bananas develop.
Then – the flower dropped! You can see the tiny green fingers develop. They are fused together at this point.
The the fingers began to separate into hands.
I inherited one banana plant which produced a gorgeous stalk of about 100 bananas last year. I kept waiting for them to ripen but then heard that if I left them too long, they would turn black and split open. So I decided to use another method so I chopped the stalk off . . .
. . . and put it in a bag with a piece of apple (for the ethylene gas) and sure enough they began to ripen at turbo speed. Within a week or so I had 8 dozen ripe bananas. So I rolled up my sleeves, determined to use every banana and test many recipes. I left muffins at the beach, bread in the park (nicely displayed, of course with a FREE sign)- and baked like a fool. My favorite was this from Cooks.com. It had that yummy moistness and slight carmelization from the pecans. I tried many but this was it true to it’s name – banana heaven!
| BEST BANANA MUFFINS | |
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1/2 c. butter, at room temperature
1 c. sugar 2 eggs 1 1/2 c. flour 1 tsp. baking soda 1 tsp. salt 1 c. mashed very ripe bananas 1/2 c. sour cream 1 tsp. vanilla 1/2 c. chopped walnuts or pecans (optional) Preheat oven to 350°F.Cream butter, sugar, and eggs. Sift the dry ingredients and combine with butter mixture. Blend well. Add bananas, sour cream and vanilla; stir well.
Stir in nuts and pour into a well-buttered 9x5x3 inch loaf pan, several smaller loaf pans or muffin tins. Bake until center is set and a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean (about 50-60 minutes for a larger loaf pan or 25 minutes for muffins). Turn out onto a rack to cool. |
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Banana plants are amazing. Their leaves are gorgeous – usually emerald green and they grow quickly. They have that ‘manana’ feel that makes you want to string a hammock somewhere in the vicinity. They provide great shade with foliage that filters the tropical sun into luminous shades of lime. Within a year of planting they usually produce fruit and a couple of pups. As long as I live in a sympatico climate, I will definately grow bananas. They are the quintessential tropical plant.
Here are the latest pix, taken a few hours ago. The last one gives some perspective.
