We've just grown some bananas for the first time in our permaculture garden here and they are absolutely delicious - sweet, creamy, dense. We've all commented on how different the texture and flavour is from the ones we'd been buying.
We have been eating them all week in various forms, but there were still so many today when they started to drop off the stem - time to prepare them for freezing and drying to make the most of this incredible abundance.
Perfect sweet bananas from our garden.
Bunches of bananas tend to all ripen around the same time. This bunch had over 110 bananas (12 kgs). We harvested them on the 4 February, by 11 February they were full ripe and delicious. By today, 14 February, they were dropping off.
Bunch just harvested - 4 February
Ready to eat - 11 February
Today 14 February, the bananas were so ripe they were dropping off the stem - literally unpeeling themselves. The flesh was not at all squishy - just perfectly firm, sweet and yummy.
Evan and Hugh peeled all the remaining bananas - peels are going in a paper bag as a present for the worms. Because the bananas are fully ripened before harvesting, the skins are thinner and much easier to peel.
I sliced the bananas for the food drier. We should have some yummy treats for our lunchbox tomorrow.
These perennial herbs are just incredible. Not only do they produce so much healthy food, wonderful homemade products for hair and skin care, but also lots of organic matter for the soil, and materials that can be used to make paper, clothing, furniture and more. I have seen so many birds come to visit the flowering banana too. Interesting we usually overlook the peel, but in Indonesia we cooked the banana peel into a delicious meal. Banana peel it appears also has many medicinal benefits and household uses ... but that is another story.
