When Mr. Adams raised the alarm in a group early last week that he had a bunch of green bananas resting atop a shed at his home, but he wasn’t sure if they were fit, he was advised to wait a little longer; they weren’t quite full.
A week later, Adams was in the garden again: “Please tell me if they’re now ready,” he asked the group again.
With green bananas being as scarce as they are these days and their elevation to the rank of King Banana (and King Plantain) since Hurricane Melissa, you can understand Adams’ anxiety.
Everyone advised him to remain patient.
Bee farmer Hyacinth Rochester was to the point with her response: “The fingers are a bit thin. Give them two more weeks and see if they will fill out some.”
Rochester’s farm is in Content, St. Catherine. She says she dabbled in commercial farming for several years before retiring from the education system seven years ago.
These days, she admits, she is into a little of everything, but her major crops are pineapples, coconuts, yams, and various fruits. And of course, all things honey.
When asked to share more information about the maturity of Adams’ green bananas, she advised that they really needed more time to mature. The typical educator, who can never retire, she then took me to school!
“The hands at the top of a bunch of bananas are usually fatter than the bottom ones,” she lectured. “I don’t watch the colour so much on the skin. I look at how full the finger is, how thick they appear. The fingers should look like food is in them. Sometimes in your home garden, you may get a bunch with one hand, and they are so tiny, you have to throw them out.
“However, there’s this fairly new variety of bananas on the market. It bears long bunches that sometimes contain over twelve hands, but the thing is, they have seeds. Some people don’t like the seeds; I’m one of them. So to avoid them, you have to cut the hand when it isn’t overmature; that way, the seed will be underdeveloped.”
Did she have any special instruction for Freedom Come Rain’s rookie backyard farmers who were setting a watch over their royal bananas and plantains?
“You have to monitor your plants carefully,” she directed, “and feed them with compost and fowl manure, etcetera, so they can develop well.”
How soon do you think Farmer Adams’ green bananas will be ready? Send us your guesstimate at freedomcomerain@gmail.com.