GROWING FOOD AT P2

MARY’S BANANAS AND PAPAYAS

Florida’s climate can be harsh on some plants, we’ve not had a lot of success growing food so far, until now. Mary has figured out how to grow bananas and papayas. 

We have two flowering banana plants that we received mail order, they were produced by a tissue culture lab which is located north of us. This duplication process produces perfect genetic copies and they have many types of banana plants to choose from. It took about a year and a half to grow them up from little whisps of green to mature fruiting plants. 

Lisa bananas

Lisa bananas

Ice Cream bananas

Mary grew all her papayas from seeds which she acquired out of papayas she bought at the grocery store (she picked fruits that were particularly yummy and planted their seeds). Before she sprouted any seeds she read that Papaya are difficult to grow and they don't like to be transplanted. In OUR experience they are easy to sprout and tolerant of a lot of physical abuse such as not watering them. Mary has abused a lot of papaya plants, putting dozens in the same pot and letting them duke it out or growing a couple hundred starts in a single pot and letting them die off and get very flappy. But she's also been kind to many, saved them from certain death in the trash. 

THE STORY OF PIP AND POP

We have one magical pair of papaya plants growing at the rear of our property. They were not there prior to this past spring. After some of Mary’s potted papaya plants started to grow we could recognize what the plant looks like. She spotted a wild pair of baby papaya plants coming up near the drain canal out back. They survived the draught and continued to grow. The female now has papayas growing on her and her male counter part stands proud next to her. Mary named them Pip and Pop. We have no idea how the seeds got planted there, animal droppings? And it’s even more amazing we have a perfect male and female couple there together. 

Pip (on left) Pop (on right)

Pip papayas

The first banana plant to deliver fruit is a variety called “Ice Cream”. When a banana plant is ready to flower it sends out a flag leaf which proclaims to the world, “I’m done, my last life duty is to produce bananas”, then the plant dies, replaced by a pup that is now growing at the base of the mother. 

Ice Cream banana plant

The second banana plant to fruit is a variety called “Mona Lisa”. We were surprised to see Lisa shoot out a flag leaf when she did (she’s still a little young), then the big strange violet colored flower appeared and from under the petals of the flower hands of bananas appear. Unless you watch how a banana plant makes bananas it seems like an unlikely or very strange process.

Lisa

We are watching the bananas carefully as they ripen, at some point we’ll cut off the flower and wrap the fruit in a plastic trash bag to protect from hungry bats and birds. 

We’re also watching the papayas carefully, their fruits also need to be covered up and protected from birds who love these yummy fruits. 

Hermes (self pollinating papaya)

Hermes making strangely shaped papayas

Our property came with a small grove of orange trees but the asian killer bugs infected all the trees, the disease is impossible to eradicate so we had the orange trees removed. Mary replaced all those positions with bananas, papayas and a couple of Coco palms (which are underperformers). 

Full view of the old (new) orchard, bananas are much more fun than finicky citrus

By far the bananas and papayas have been our most successful food plants. 

Our bamboo grove continues to grow and flourish. We have lots of small canes in the baby area but we also have over 50 large canes coming up in our newest 10 clumps. We’re learning how to cultivate these plants and make more. The bamboo is draught tolerant and grows well in sandy soil so it’s a good one for us and our property. 

Bamboo grove, babies on left

I found a couple of date palm trees underneath an overgrown oak tree and covered with tons of brush in a far corner of our property. There was one long frond sticking out from the date palm as if he was waving for “H E L P”. I paid the tree people to remove the oak and all the brush, now the date palm is spreading it’s wings and starting to fly. Many plants don’t do well in full Florida sun but “Date” (we give everything names) seems to thrive on the full son. You go boy!

DATE!

New papaya and banana growing area

BANANA CIRCLE UPDATE

Here it is, July 21, 2017. Overall the banana circle is a fantastic success. Our artesian well provides water to the circle of plants. In the center is a hole six feet deep and six feet in diameter. We filled the hole with scrap cardboard, cutting waste from plants, weeds, and any 'ole organic matter (including Zoidbergs wedding album). The organic waste breaks down and feeds the banana plant roots that reach down into it. 

Mary is putt'n Permaculture on da map here in Melbin
This banana circle was born in December of 2016 when Mary dug the 6x6 crater by hand

In our nine years together we've experimented with growing a lot of plants. For us bananas are some of the most rewarding plants we've grown. Of course it all depends on the climate zone but here in the Southwest corner of Melbourne Florida they flourish with minimal care and water (which is all any of our plants get :-). 

THE NEW P2 AIR CONDITIONER

After weeks of bids and then more weeks waiting our turn for an installation crew to come and install our new air conditioner at the hottest nastiest time of the year, it's finally in and working. 

For fun I set it to 68 and it throttled up and chilled the place down to 68 and then kept it there. It felt like a deep freeze in here. I turned it up to 72 and it slowly let itself slow down until it obtained 72, it used every bit of cold energy in the system on it's way toward the higher thermostat setting. The old system would just shut off and waste all that cold energy in the lines. 

The new model is variable speed with 750 levels from low to high. Both the inside air handler and the outdoor condensing unit go up and down in speed, in perfect synchronization. Overall it's much quieter than our previous 20 year old Lennox system. 

Our old air conditioner had two speeds, on and off, it sucked 4200 watts when it was running. I can check the power consumption on our digital power meter. That's right around $1.76 cost per hour of run time in Lancaster California or 42-cents per hour here in Melbourne Florida. 

The new system has 750 speeds so it has proportionate power consumption depending on how fast it is running, higher speed = more power draw, lower speed = less power used. 

I've been checking on it periodically and tracking the power usage. With the new system running at the loudest speed I've heard the current draw was 1326 watts. That was when I was running it to get down to 68. That's 2874 watts less than the old system. That is equal to a savings of $1.20/hour in Lancaster California or 29-cents per hour here in Melbourne Florida. More importantly, it's a 68% reduction in power consumption. 

This is all preliminary data. The system is set to run a programmed cycle tomorrow, I'll track power usage during the peak hot time of the day which typically occurs between two and three PM, it will be interesting see how the numbers vary over the course of the day. So far it looks like the higher efficiency unit will definitely pay for itself in electricity savings over the projected life of the hardware. That would be cool (pun intended). 

Red Has Papayas Forming

I was worried about Red being far away from the male banana since she's on the south side of the property, but apparently either the moths/bees/bats are travelling over the 5 acres to get to Red, or she's a self-pollinating papaya.  Her fruit are very different from Pip to the north:  Pip has round fruit, Red has elogated fruit.  

Red has papayas forming

Mona and her First Bananas

I'm amazed how quick we get from flag leaf to flower to bananas.  It's been just eight days since I noticed the flag leaf, and now you can peek under Mona's first flower petal and see about 12 tiny bananas forming.  The tiny bananas are no more than 3" long right now, with yellow flowers on them.  

Mona will be interesting to watch, as she spent much of her life in a pot and only made it into the ground a few months ago.  She seems perfectly normal and happy, just like Ice Cream, but her trunk is a but thinner.

New Bamboo Cane Update - July 2 2017

Mark got me an amazing rechargeable hand edger, and as I was out doing a test trim of the grass and weeds around the bamboo, I noticed that we have LOTS of new canes.  It was too hot outside to do a thorough count (needed A/C!!!), but I'm certain there are 25 between 1-10 and A-J.  This is good news!  Last year 1-10 didn't shoot out canes until August, so I'm thrilled that they all started to put out their summer canes the 1st week of July.

More pictures coming soon!

Other plants on P2

These pretty pink flowers show up every summer, and the fig tree makes a few figs.

Worms!

My red wiggler Worm Factory is doing great...  aren't they cute?  We're up to six stories of varying levels of cardboard, coffee grounds, shredded paper, banana peels, papaya skins, carrot tops, discarded cooked vegetables.  When I used the first batch of worm castings from these guys, scooping some into each pot in the pool cage, the plants visibly exploded with growth.  I'll try it again tomorrow.

Red Papaya needs a boyfriend

This is the red papaya I bought from Ted at Green Earth (I call him bananaman).  She is doing great, making lovely flowers as a female papaya should.  But alas, the only male on the property is Pop in the back, 1/4 mile away.  

I planted more papayas next to Red... hopefully one of them is a happy male papaya.

Raccoons love Bacon and Naps

Banana Circle July 1 2017

The Banana Circle is flourishing, with lots of rot in the middle as it should be :)

New Bamboo Update - July 1 2017

New cane on "A"

I found new canes on A, G, and H

So pretty when they first burst out of the ground, growing 6" a day!

G is particularly prolific with 4 new canes

The wall of bamboo will be VERY thick after this years canes

The Banana Plantation

The banana plantation is loving the rain we've been having, and is flourishing.  Here's the view from the south side.

This banana deserves special mention.  This is the infamous Gros Michel, which will produce bananas that taste sweet like bananas originally tasted in the 50's and 60's.

Pip and Pop - Our Happy Papaya Couple

There's quite a story here in the back papaya patch.  This spot started out when we moved in as just a patch of shampoo ginger.  You can see the pretty green ginger plants growing from the ground up to 3 feet tall.  In another month they'll have gorgeous red cones on 2 foot stalks, with each cone filled with nice smelling sticky goo that girls in the tropics wash their hair with.

I dug out all of the ginger rhizomes as they were too dense from duplicating over the years, and replanted just the right amount.  I marked the patch with the white fencing and forgot about it.

A year ago when I started studying papaya and how easy it is to grow in Florida, I started a lot of papaya seed in the pool cage, caring for it and repotting each one when it got too big.  I became very familiar with the shape.  During that time, something odd happened.  Somebody (human or animal or bird) planted papaya seeds in the ginger patch.  Not a lot, just two.  Pip and Pop.  They showed up like weeds, and I'm sure anyone else would have cut them down.  But I quickly realized they were unplanned papaya and let them go.  I did absolutely nothing, even ignored them over the 6 month drought we had from November through May of this year.  They not only excelled, they turned out to be a female on the left and a male on the right.  Although I don't see any bees, I'm guessing the sphynx moths or bats at night are doing the pollinating job.  Regardless... look....  papayas!

Here's some back up papayas I actually planted from seed.