Growing Bananas In Taiwan 外國人種香蕉的日記

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My rooftop bananas compared with normal bananas.

Some would say Ecuador is the banana capital of the world, and that is probably right, but I’m sure Taiwan bananas are just as good. One of the great things about living in Taiwan is you can buy fresh bananas on the street almost everywhere, so if you are a banana connoisseur like myself you will not have worry about bananas going bad (I eat bananas single every day).
有人會說厄瓜多爾是世界香蕉之基地，但我相信台灣的香蕉也一樣好。住在台灣的好處之一就是到處都可以在街上買到新鮮的香蕉，所以如果你像我一樣是個香蕉鑑賞家，你就不用擔心香蕉壞掉的沒香蕉吃（我每天吃香蕉）。

Banana prices, along with all fruits and vegetables, are affected by Typhoons. Some of the most famous bananas are from 旗山 Qishan in Kaohsiung. Some of the biggest bananas I have ever seen. At the beginning of 2017, bananas were selling at 4 times the normal price, a ten year high. (They got up to 85 NT per catty, and in 2022 now they are a mere 50 NT per catty! But in 2018 they got down to 20 NT per catty). Noe in 2024, the price is about 30 NT per catty. 
香蕉價錢, 以及所有水果和蔬菜, 都受到颱風的影響。一些最有名的香蕉來自高雄旗山區, 其中是我見過的最大的香蕉。 

Planting a garden is a major hobby for the older and retired generation in Taiwan. Most don't do it to make money, they just do it for fun and for a healthy lifestyle. I am with them all the way, and that's why my wife thinks I am actually a Taiwanese Abei.
種植花園是台灣老年和退休人士的主要愛好。大多數人並不是為了賺錢，而是為了娛樂和健康的生活方式。我一直認同和支持他們這麼做，這就是為什麼我的妻子認為我是一個台灣的阿伯。

2024 Update: Harvesting the Fruits of My Labor

After two years, my rooftop banana tree is finally flowering.

​Let me just say for those of you that are wondering, if you want big juicy bananas, growing them on a rooftop in a small flower pot is not going to do the job. You will see why soon. 

After two years, the banana plants had gotten a little bigger, but one one was big enough to flower. I also planted some papaya trees that are about as tall as me now and some pineapple plants. 

Large banana flower now with papaya tree in the background. 

Cute baby bananas started to sprout up. 

Things were looking promising. 

More baby bananas started to sprout up.

The bananas then slowly grew bigger.

Flowering continued. 

Then the flower started to droop over the side, which I thought was normal. 

The growing pretty much stopped here, but the bananas remained green. 

Then all the leaves died and no new leaves grew. That was not a good sign. Then, the flower just turned black and no new bananas came.

I think this may have been because the tree exhausted all of its nutrients into making that flower. Maybe I should have cut the flower off. People have told me that the flower is edible. 

Another theory I have is that the two banana sprouts that came out from the roots of the tree also sapped all the nutrients from it, or made it too crowded in that pot. 

Eventually the banana tree just died and fell over. You can see the other two banana sprouts coming in big and strong at the bottom. 

Since the tree was dead and the bananas were not getting any bigger, I decided it was time to harvest what I had. 

The rest of the flower turned black and just rotted away.

Under a normal banana tree, the flower will just keep growing, making an endless stream of bananas, such as the tree pictured above. 

I was able to harvest about 15 little bananas in the end. 

Bananas with the full stem on my counter top. 

I let the bananas turn yellow by just leaving them there for a few days. The inside was a sweet tiny banana. By no means did I make profit on this investment.

As I said, I like to have banana every day. I also just made a new creation: chocolate banana French toast. It was good. 

You may think that this is the end of the story. No. At the same time in April 2023, I moved some banana sprouts into the forest at an undisclosed location. All of the sprouts died (overtaken by weeds) except for one, pictured above. 

Unlike the other plants, this one was not confined to a small flower pot on my rooftop. It was able to grow steadily and swiftly in the open ground in the forest. 

Soon it had began to grow even taller than me. 

And it has continued to grow. 

Now the plant is about twice as tall as me and the leaves are huge.

So, from this experiment we can see that it is much better to plant your banana trees in open ground where they can spread their roots, get more nutrients, and be able to grow larger than before.
This banana journal is not over. I hope to be able to harvest some big bananas soon.

Also I was able to grow some strawberries on my balcony. 

Strawberries also go great with French toast and bacon. 

I also grew and am still growing some sweet potato leaves. They are some of the easiest things to grow ever, and sprout like weeds. After you pick the leaves, they grow right back.

I also harvested some kale and made it into an omelet. Kale grows a bit slower and for some reason kept on being infested by bugs.

Until next time, you can continue reading my banana journal from years past below. 

April 2023 Update - Still No Bananas

I can't believe it's been 10 months since the last post. Since then, two banana trees have grown tall (one is taller than me) and the rest are stunted. The tall one still has not produced bananas. 

My friend gave me six large pots in exchange for some deodorant, and I bought four 25 liter bags of dirt which were on sale 149 NT per bag at Carrefour. 

Most of the banana trees have been stunted in these small pots. Because I cannot move them all to large pots, I decided to cull the small ones and leave the larger ones. I need the smaller pots to grow more vegetables. I also decided to keep all the Papaya trees.

I also had a someone dying pineapple plant.  I planted this by cutting off the top of a pineapple, leaving it in water, then after it sprouted roots I moved it into the dirt. 

A largish papaya tree and larger banana plant. 

In the process of moving the papaya trees, I snapped one of the stems in half, but I put it back together using a toothpick. Hopefully it will survive. 

Separating four Papaya trees into big pots. 

Now all the plants are in big pots. I have one pineapple plant, five papaya trees, and five banana trees. 

The four smaller papaya trees. 

The three smaller banana plants that were not culled. 

The largest papaya tree. This is all it has to show after nearly a year which I think it pathetic. 

Second largest banana tree.

My pride and joy, the largest banana tree which will hopefully start sprouting bananas soon. This one is taller than me. I noticed that the leaves grow and then naturally die and turn into brown dead leaves on the side of the tree. I decided to trim these off, hopefully it is not bad for the tree. 

June 2022 - Moving to bigger pots

The time had finally come where I felt like the biggest banana plants were ready for bigger pots. The biggest pots I could find for a good price were 175 NT from RT Mart. 

Bags of soil were also cheaper there, 175 NT per bag too. I bought two of each. For 700 NT, you would hope I can get my money's worth for the bananas I will grow. 700 NT can buy a lot of bananas...so I stopped at buying two big pots. The rest of the smaller banana trees will have to live in smaller pots. 

The huge pots took a bag of 25 kg dirt each. The large banana plants had grown roots now all around the smaller pots. 

Small pot in a big pot for comparison.

The two largest banana plants now moved into the larger pots. These pots should be big enough to grow a tree and get some bananas. 

With the two leftover smaller pots I was able to move my papaya tree sprouts in. Hopefully they will be able to grow into tall trees as well. 

Current banana and papaya garden.

More photos in the gallery above. 

April 2022 - Ten New Banana Sprouts

​I can't believe it has been five years since I first started growing bananas back in 2017. The reason I stopped that journal was because my uncle moved to Hsinchu and he took the banana plants with him. Time flies. If things would have proceeded smoothly, I could have had 10 crops of the bananas by now. I thought about growing them, but we lived in an apartment with no balcony and I did not want to rent a plot of land. But now we have our own house on the top floor with two balconies, and the prices of bananas has soared to over 50 NT per catty. It's time to relive the banana farmer dream. 

You can't grow bananas from seeds, unless you want to eat bananas that have seeds in them. You have to take a root of a living banana tree to make a new banana sprout. I looked around for places that sold them with no luck. Finally I looked on Shoppee and found the above place that sold them for 17 NT per sprout, which is about the same price as one banana in this overpriced market. I had to buy at least 10 to complete an order, so that is what I did.

Three days later all 10 banana tree sprouts came in a cardboard box. I quickly moved them out and into the open air. The Shoppee store said to wait for a week until I replant them.

Then I went out and bought ten flower pots and about 20 kg of dirt for them. I realize eventually I will have to buy bigger flower pots, but for now we will see how many of them live. I will treat them as my own children and give them every opportunity to grow strong.
​Currently I have not given them special fertilizer, just the general fruit tree soil that I guess already has fertilizer in it.
Now that it is not raining and there is sun, hopefully we will have some major photosynthesis going on and these babies will grow big enough to harvest fruit by the end of the year.

May - September 2017 My first Banana Plants

Partly because of this and because I love bananas, I have planted 4 banana sprouts on my in-laws property. I should be able to harvest fruit in a year or two.
 2017年初，香蕉的價錢是普通價錢的四倍，十年來最高。 （那時候每斤85元，現在每斤只有12-18元！） 我在我的老婆家人的田裡種了4個香蕉苗, 因為我喜歡吃香蕉! 我應該可以在一兩年內收穫水果。

We started with two banana sprouts in May which started out well, but then one died after the torrential rains in June. The other one barely survived, with the top dying off but sprouting up new leaves from below ground (pictured below).
我們從五月份的兩個香蕉苗開始，然後在六月的暴雨之後死了一隻。另一隻很奇妙地存下來，頂端垂死，但從地下發芽（如下圖）。
我們從五月份開始的兩個香蕉芽開始，然後在六月的暴雨之後死亡。另一隻大麥倖存下來，頂端垂死，但從地下發芽（如下圖）。我們從五月份開始的兩個香蕉芽開始，然後在六月的暴雨之後死亡。另一隻大麥倖存下來，頂端垂死，但從地下發芽（如下圖）。我們從五月份開始的兩個香蕉芽開始，然後在六月的暴雨之後死亡。另一隻大麥倖存下來，頂端垂死，但從地下發芽（如下圖）。我們從五月份開始的兩個香蕉芽開始，然後在六月的暴雨之後死亡。另一隻大麥倖存下來，頂端垂死，但從地下發芽（如下圖）。

Saddened by our loss, we decided to plant two more sprouts. After Typhoon Nesat in July, our three strong banana plants survived. 
因為我們損失感到難過，所以我們決定種植兩隻苗。 7月份的颱風奈薩之後，我們的三棵強壯的香蕉植株倖存了下來。
我們的損失感到難過，我們決定種植兩個豆芽。 7月份的颱風奈薩之後，我們的三棵強壯的香蕉植株倖存了下來。我們的損失感到難過，我們決定種植兩個豆芽。 7月份的颱風奈薩之後，我們的三棵強壯的香蕉植株倖存了下來。

With Typhoon season pretty much over in September (right?) I thought for sure it was going to be smooth sailing from now on.
9月颱風季節差不多結束了（對吧？）我想，從現在開始，我確信這將是一帆風順的。

But I did not foresee our precious banana field being knocked down by strong rains again from a typhoon. Our cheap and rotten bamboo scaffolding had fallen down, ruining many beans that my wife's uncle had planted. 
但是我沒有預料到我們珍貴的香蕉田會再次受到颱風的強降雨的衝擊。我們那便宜又爛的竹棚子倒了，毀掉了我妻子叔叔種的許多豆子。

But I was happy to see our banana plants were still doing well, and has doubled in size!
但我很高興地看到我們的香蕉植物仍然做得很好，並且尺寸翻了一番！

I was also happy to see that our pineapple plant had survived and was doing well, along with a forest of papaya plant sprouts which I had spread all over after drying them from a store-bought papaya. I had no faith that they would actually sprout.
我也很高興地看到我們的鳳梨植物生存下來，很健康，還有一些木瓜植物的芽苗形成的小森林，我從超市買來的木瓜, 把它們的種子全部散開後，散發出來。我不相信他們真的會萌芽。

With 3 strong banana sprouts growing along with pineapple and papaya plants, I have faith that I will be harvesting bananas and other tropical fruit for my personal consumption soon.
I go now every two weeks to put my kitchen food waste (such as egg shells and banana peels) on them. I know that Taipei city gives free kitchen waste to every citizen (a few kilos per month or something), but my kitchen waste is already more than enough and to spare for my small garden.
隨著鳳梨,木瓜和香蕉3苗，我相信我將很快收穫香蕉和其他熱帶水果，供我個人飲食。 我現在每兩個星期去把我的廚餘（如蛋殼和香蕉皮）放在上面。我知道台北市給每個公民免費的廚餘（每個月幾公斤），但是我的廚餘已經綽綽有餘了。

Igoogled online and apparently banana plants need potassium, nitrogen, and calcium to do well, so every two weeks I make sure they get some of each, and I make sure to stir my kitchen waste into the soil. Other than that I will give no further scientific commentary on their nutritional needs. This is a tropical island with tons of rain so my expectation is that I can pretty much sit back and watch them grow beautiful and delicious fruits for me.
我在網上搜索，顯然香蕉植物需要鉀，氮和鈣來成長，所以每兩週我確保他們得到一些，我一定要攪動我的廚餘到土壤中。除此之外，我不會作進一步的科學營養需求評論。這是一個熱帶的島嶼，有很多的雨水，所以我的期望是，我幾乎可以坐下來，看著它們為我成長美麗而美味的水果。

If you have a garden in Taiwan too, share your thoughts! If not, plant a garden and save the earth! Stay tuned for updates! In the mean time, like and share!
如果你在台灣也有花園，請分享你的想法！如果沒有，種植一個花園，拯救地球！請繼續關注更新！同時，按讚和分享！

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