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Are you going to miss bananas?

There are much nicer banana varieties out there than the one most common in stores, and they are more disease resistant.
We have at least 3 here that I think are MUCH better than the standard banana. You haven't eaten a banana until you've had "Ladyfingers".
So don't despair - experiment!

https://homeguides.sfgate.com/lady-finger-banana-trees-44621.html
 
Connie and I have tried several times to grow bananas here, but have never been successful at it. They do great the first year, but never seem to recover from the Winter months when it kills them back.

Maybe with global warming, before we die we will be able to grow more of the really tropical stuff. I would love to grow coconut palms! Once when we were in Sanibel, we found some coconuts laying on the ground that were already sprouting plants from them. We brought a few back home, and tried to grow them, but it only took temps in the mid 30s to kill them. They don't like cold even a little bit.

But it isn't necessarily only the tropical stuff that I can't seem to grow. Watermelons have slapped me around every time I try to grow them. And I thought they would be easy. Plants do well, vines well leafed out, flowers look good, and small melons will form. I water them about once a week, give them fertilizer, and set up "bunny blasters" to keep the deer from grazing on them. Invariably, the melons will either split open on their own, or get a black spot on them that just spreads and destroys the melon. I have tried MANY different varieties, all with the same results. :bandhead0
 
Helenthereef said:
There are much nicer banana varieties out there than the one most common in stores, and they are more disease resistant.
We have at least 3 here that I think are MUCH better than the standard banana. You haven't eaten a banana until you've had "Ladyfingers".
So don't despair - experiment!

https://homeguides.sfgate.com/lady-finger-banana-trees-44621.html
Click to expand...

There are many different varieties of bananas out there but from what I understand very few are suitable for mass distribution like the Cavendish has been. They either don't grow in large enough quantities or they don't habdle the stresses of shipping as well (they ripen too quickly or they bruise easily among other things.) Perhaps its partly because since the Cavendish has been so successful no one has really tried any other ones. I'm too young (barely) to remember the Big Mikes which were the banana variety of the day until the mid 60's when they were pretty much wiped out by the same disease that is now threatening the cavendish. Supposedly it was much sweeter than what we are now accustomed to.

I just read that there are still Big Mikes being grown on small plots that have so far been disease resistant and that hybrid varieties of the Big Mike and Cavendish. You can order a 3-5 pound box of the Big Mikes for $67.00 from the Miami Fruit Company. I'll stick with my 49 cents a pound Kwik Trip bananas for now.

Some of the less common varieties are available in stores that specialize in such things but if the disease does eventually cause the Cavendish to go the way of the Big Mike we've probably seen the end of widely available cheap bananas
 
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