The Banana Saga

Upon arrival at The Landing we inherited a banana circle, comprised of dwarf Cavendish banana 'trees'. Planted in a circle around a depression into which part of our greywater system drains, and into which we regularly toss green matter, compostable materials, and food scraps from our secret organic restaurant source, and where our chooks happily feed, these are happy banana plants.

We harvested one rather mediocre bunch mid-winter. The flavour was not much to brag about. I usually don't care much for Cavendish bananas. They are too bland, lacking that citrusy zing of the Lady Fingers, or the creamy texture of the Golden Cream variety.

A month or so ago, we saw bunches begin to suddenly appear. First one, then a second. Looking from below, even tho these are short trees, we could not see more. Then, overnight, another bunch, then another. Finally we had six bunches, all hanging at the same time.

Too heavy for the small trees, we had to prop some up. The first two broke the stems of the tress and had to be harvested right then. So we hung them on the back veranda and watched. Now they are getting yellow-ish. A few bananas, ahead of the others, got quite yellow and I carefully extracted them from the bunch, to try them. I was surprised to find them quite flavourful.

That was the moment when it hit me: we were about to have a glut. So many bananas, what would we do with them all? My calculations at first came to about 600. Now I am certain the total will be nearer to 750 bananas!

The first bunch to be harvested.

The second bunch.
Each has around 120 bananas on it.

As a beekeeper, and with the advent of our new top-bar hives, which are famous for producing more wax than standard (Langstroth) hives, I had designed a solar wax melting box. Seeing how well it came together, it occurred to me that it was generating heat that could serve two purposes. So, I added a top cabinet into which I made ports to admit the heated air. I also added a small port to let cool air in and a port in the top of the top section to let heated air escape, in hopes of creating air flow.

The Solar Dehydrator and Bee's Wax Melter

The bottom space is for melting and purifying bees wax.
A framework to support the aluminium pans will be added.

The interior of the top box. Shelf supports on the sides and ports in the bottom to admit heated air from below.

The first trial of the dehydrator was with Rosella flowers. I dried, very successfully, almost 200 grams of hibiscus flowers. That's dry weight, so its a lot of red dried flowers for tea.

Rosella, dried flowers

Now the dehydrator is undergoing another test: drying banana chips.

A rack full of chips, about 13 bananas worth.

Six racks full of Banana Chips. Hope they are not too thick!

Friends have suggested making banana jam, cooking the green bananas, freezing them, selling bunches, and just eating them. I think we will try a combination of all of these in the ongoing Banana Saga.