All About Pups...The Late-May-/Slash/-Early-June-Summer-Blog-posting!

Lou Ferrigno, as "The Incredible Hulk", Friday nights on CBS...circa 1978.

Oh...How times have changed!--Remember a few weeks ago when those gnarly green nubs that were poking out of last years smelly banana stumps?  Now what have we got?  Big Green Monsters!  The energy from the 2013's big plants is now funneled into explosive growth.  We'll continue to see this for another few months if we get decent rainfall.  Things will be looking up from the bananas point of view.

Pup-mania-- Calls, emails, random passers-by at the Charleston Farmers Market, etc., all with the same question, "Why are my banana plants pullulating* so much this Spring?"   Banana plants don't really 'know' the seasons.  All they know is that something, somehow, removed the growing portion of the plant.  In the tropics, it could be eaten by an animal or a fallen tree may have broken the banana plant in half.  The results are the same: Send out new growth.  This could be a replacement stem and/or new growth in the form of pups. 

Don't Forget--to Water.  May has been pretty dry.

Should the Zombie Apocalypse come to fruition, sooner rather than later, rest assured that your banana plants can be the key to your survival.  In addition to the great fruit that you may get, if conditions are right, there are many uses for the banana plant itself.  Many of these uses can be seen in this very interesting video:

Pup Chow--If you watched the video above, you may have seen the part about eating the inner core of the stem( at the 9:57 mark).  Here is a Thai recipe that looks like a delicious way to use some of those excess pups.  Eat those pups! Step by Step recipe.

When you get full of those delicious pups for dinner, consider transplanting some.  It is an easy project.  Place a shovel between the mother plant and the pup and dig straight down.  You should see the pup loosen.  Dig around the remaining sides and the pup should pop right up.  Trim the leaves in half and transplant in a desired location.
 
If you have ever wondered how they get those bananas from very tall plants, check out this video.  You can see it is a very smooth operation when done by skilled hands.

  

The How's it Hangin' section:  We got nothin'...yet.
When you get a flower or fruit, send some pictures our way and we'll post them up in our very next blog! 

*pullulating-definition