Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Banana Trees


I grew up with lots of banana trees and bananas. The water engineer likes bananas for breakfast.

In Auckland, I see them but they don't fruit. The weather is too cold for them.

These trees were at my allotment in Singapore. You can use all parts of the tree;

Flower in a Thai salad, or Thai soup.

Fruit as in fruit, or salad, or baked in muffins or cakes.

Trunk in a Burmese soup.

Leaves for wrapping cakes, serving to Indian Gods, in place of plates to eat from.

My friends come and get my banana parts because I don't use them. These banana are baby bananas and are slightly bigger than one's finger. Bits of the peel sticks to the banana fruit. It's not very palatable. My friends say they are very sweet and fragrant.

It is easy to grown banana trees. Once you have one established, you don't need to grow again. You chop off the mature tree, little saplings will grow from the stump. You also don't need to fertilise them.

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