A while back we shared a post on our Instagram about the harvest of a 40-day banana tree in our garden. The name comes from the supposed number of days the fruits take to mature after the flowering period.
We adopted this tree from a barter trade, exchanging a bunch of galangal gingers with someone from the Facebook group “Yard to Table”, a community group of plant enthusiasts and growers worth checking out. After a year of growing next to our rough compost area, we received our first banana harvest!
Once fruited, the tree is not likely to fruit again, so we made the practical decision to cut it down and make space for the new suckers (cute name for new banana shoots).
We took a morning to work on our garden, bringing down the mother tree with a machete. Banana trees are relatively easy to cut down as her “trunk”, which is non-woody and consists of layers of leaves wrapped together, is juicy and fibrous. With a few swift cuts of the machete at the base and a firm push in one direction, the weight of the tree aided by gravity did the rest of the work.
But the remains of the old tree is not wasted; the big leaves and the stem can be split and laid around planter beds. Since the plant is super juicy, the water will be slowly released into the soil, making it pretty awesome mulch.
Peeling and cutting the stem can be very therapeutic to the hands and ears too. It is like peeling very crunchy onions, layer by layer, but without the tears!
We used a sharp knife to cut a clean cross-section of the stem. We love how the prints turned out; the spiraling patterns of the leaf sheaths wrapping onto each other is mesmerizing to observe up close.
The central black core in the prints above is an overlooked edible part of this amazing plant. Thanks to our hosts at Sahainan Permaculture Farm last December, we were able to try the crunchy core of the banana pseudostem cooked in a variety of curries and salads, paired with both wild and cultivated vegetables growing around their farm. Its flavour is not strong, but the texture is a nice complement to many dishes.
We hope you enjoyed our banana findings but we’re not done yet! There’s so much more amazing properties about banana trees that we hope to share over time.
Till next time!
Liz and Shirin
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