Northland
Bananas are one of the most popular groceries in our shopping trolleys. Each of us eats, on average, 18kg of bananas a year.
It’s good to go bananas, according to Wendy Laurenson.
Most of these are imported, but locally grown bananas are starting to appear in Northland and they may be a sign of things to come.
With bananas thriving and fruiting well in hidden pockets around Northland, the level of interest in growing them is on the rise. And this increasing curiosity about growing our own bananas is being fuelled by some timely changes.
Firstly, a few local growers have been in the game long enough to produce good fruit all year round, showing us that bananas can crop here consistently. Also, tropical banana plantations are being hit with some serious fungal diseases requiring numerous sprays, and spray resistance is now threatening crop supply. Thirdly, climate change is encouraging people to try growing bananas in Northland and other subtropical pockets. And finally, we as consumers are wanting locally grown food with a known story.
Another key motivator is that the bananas that do well here are the sweet and short subtropical lady finger type and ‘Dwarf Cavendish’ bananas, both of which have a more intense flavour and dense texture than the tropical Cavendish type we are familiar with from the supermarket.
A couple of experienced banana growers with pocket-sized plantations are supplying local Northland markets and showing the rest of us that growing our own bananas at home is possible.
In 2008, Owen Schafli and his wife Linda moved here from South Africa where Owen had grown bananas and other tropical crops commercially. They bought a bush property in Parua Bay near Whangarei and have gradually cleared pockets amongst the bush to create four acres of banana plants and other tropical fruiting treasures.
Owen is growing seven varieties, including ‘Dwarf Cavendish’, ‘Goldfinger’ (a Honduran cultivar suited to subtropical conditions) and ‘Williams’ as well as four Lady finger types.
Klaus Lotz is another influential pioneer. The Northland banana grower and his family have been growing them commercially near Matapouri for 10 years.
“We experimented with varieties and have settled on mostly ‘Misi Luki’ from Samoa and ‘Goldfinger’. Bananas crop well here, and in our subtropical climate we don’t get the tropical pests and diseases,” he explains. “We now have 200 mature banana clumps and we sell four to five crates a week at the Whangarei Growers Market all year, plus some banana plant pups or suckers.”
Banana plants naturally sucker. Most mature clumps will have surplus suckers that can become the beginning of a new clump, but it’s important to retain just three stems per clump to keep the plants fruitful and vigorous: the mother that is flowering and bearing, the daughter as the next main stem and the granddaughter to take over from her. Additional stems or suckers are surplus.
To begin your own banana clump, find a local plant that consistently fruits well, and ask for one of these surplus suckers.
Bananas are best planted in spring or early summer in a sunny site with minimum frost.
It should also be sheltered from wind and palms spaced 2-3m apart. They’ll cope with most soils, even clay, as long as water can drain away.
Like us, they need food, water, warmth and light. They are gross feeders and prefer lots of animal manure, a dollop of wood ash in spring, and plenty of mulch (especially in summer) which is easy to source from the plant itself. Banana vegetation is full of water, so cut up old leaf stems (to let in light) and previous mother plants, and stack them up in a thick skirt around the plant-clump base.
A 1m high stem will start flowering here after 12 to 18 months, and a bunch will take up to six months to mature depending on temperature and the age of the plant.
Clumps continue to flower and set fruit all year if it’s warm enough, and will flower after producing 42 leaves, regardless of season. When the fruit-set on a bunch is complete, break off the remaining long stalk of the flower and the bulbous flower head on the end.
The ripening bunch will develop and size up all year but an autumn- or winterflowering stem will be slower to mature. Some people bag (open top and bottom) the bunch in colder weather to speed up the process or to protect the bunch from cold snaps and bird or rodent damage, but it isn’t a necessity. Owen bags his bunches in June and July, takes the bags off in August, and harvests at the first sign of colour.
Once the first banana in the bunch shows some colour, the whole bunch can be harvested. It will naturally ripen inside or on a deck – just be sure to protect your bounty from birds and rodents.
There are two things to watch when harvesting your banana bunch. It’s heavy and often high up, so get support – human or otherwise – to take the load when it swings from the stem. And beware of banana plant sap. It permanently stains clothes and will irritate eyes.
After harvest, the mother stem will die and needs to be cut down to encourage the next generation of growth. Owen prunes his off to shoulder height and leaves it standing as a water source to feed into the clump, but I take ours off at ground level and cut it into chunks for the mulch skirt.
Whenever I harvest a bunch of bananas, I’m simply amazed at how much food is on it. If your garden is warm enough, banana plants produce a lot of nutritious and delicious food in a small space in a short time.
It’s also a good-looker, adding an exotic touch to your garden. So pockets of baby bananas are quietly sprouting up in warm corners in our gardens, one sucker at a time. One banana, two banana, three banana, four!