Bananas in May

This past weekend we chopped down another apple banana tree. Son1 swiftly helped Hubby pick up the leaves. He has been hankering for the tree chopping! Remember from my last post on banana trees that you chop down the tree when just one banana turns yellow on the bunch. We yielded about sixty bananas. We shared some with our neighbors on either side. Sharing fruit with your neighbors is generally expected. Of course, we don't mind sharing bananas and papayas because I make out with fresh fish from one neighbor, and lemons and other fruits from the other.

Fruit on the Farm

This is an exotic fruit commonly called Star Fruit or Five Finger. It is grown all over the world, primarily in Asia. In the US it grows in Hawaii and in Florida. These were given to us from Son1's preschool aide at the Thanksgiving banquet. Star fruits are crunchy, and have a slightly tart, acidic, sweet taste, like pears, apples, and sometimes grapes. The fruits are a good source of vitamin C. Its seeds are small and brown. They have a tough outer skin and a tangy white inside.

When they are cut into their five sections they look like five fingers.

When they are cut across they make a star shape. These are often in exotic salads at the fancy shmancy restaurants. When we take a salad to someone's house we put these in there, too. The only time we have gotten Star Fruit has been as gifts from people's yards. You can buy them, but they are a little expensive and not always available.

Another one of our banana trees is flowering. See the banana buds poking out?

It's also a papaya week. We have gotten 2 ripe papayas this week. We have three or four trees. This one is flowering at the top, too.

Backyard Bananas

Son2 tried his first fruit last night, straight from our backyard. Mmmmm he loves apple bananas. Mmmm down the hatch they went. I said "mmmm!" and he said it back!

Goin' (Apple) Bananas

Nearly two years ago we were given these apple banana trees by some of Hubby's co-workers. They are not a cross between an apple and a banana. They are just particularly sweet. They are over 2x as expensive in the store as regular bananas. My neighbors to the right of our house (not pictured) were in our backyard with me a short time after the trees were planted. They asked me if Hubby was sure he knew what he was doing planting these trees. Banana trees multiply quickly. I assured them he knew just what he was doing by planting these trees. My neighbors to the left (that's their house just beyond the bunch of bananas) mentioned once they could see in my kitchen window. HA! Hubby put a stop to that and planted three of the trees on the side of our house, blocking my kitchen window. Our neighbors spoil us, though, even when they could see in our kitchen window, too. This tree grew somewhere between 20 and 30 feet tall.

See that pointy little thing in the foreground? That is called a "keiki sucker." Right before a tree starts to flower, these little keiki suckers sprout. Keiki is the Hawaiian word for child. So the tree births a new little tree shoot before it will give fruit. It can birth lots of these around the stump, but no less than one before flowering. The dead brown leaves around the base are rich in something that helps the tree to grow, so they are not supposed to be trimmed back while the tree is growing.

The fruit has been on the tree for about six months. It is time to pick the fruit when the star tips of the banana fall off the ends and one banana turns yellow. See the one at the top of the bunch? That coily thing that is coming out of the bottom of the bunch used to be the stem to a beautiful flower that bloomed before the fruit arrived.

Each apple banana tree will only give fruit once in it's life. After the fruit has been cut down then the tree must also be cut down on an angle for it to regenerate.
The trunk was far thicker and denser than we imagined. Even with an electric saw we still had to pull it hard and down to get the trunk to fully snap. The problem was that it was naturally leaning over my neighbor's wall already. When Hubby sawed it down the weight of the tree catapulted the majority of the top heavy tree over the wall. Our neighbor came to help.

We ended up with approximately 80 bananas. We gave some to this neighbor. He is a professional skin diver and brings us huge fresh parrot fish amongst others. We shared with our other neighbor as well. We have an open invitation into his back yard for all kinds of fruits and herbs. But this particular day he traded us fresh guava for apple bananas. It is rude in local culture not to share. We are all about some aloha love here.


Son1 was really intrigued by the massive leaves that once towered over our yard now blanketing the ground.

This leaf was chopped before the picture was taken. It used to be larger and more gigantic. Son1 must know this is a "gone native" pose. He is about to give the Hawaiian shaka.

These are the trees we have left on this side of the house. We have more around back. Many of these trees stared out as just keiki suckers.