Bananas and Bags

I found that my large Passiflora edulis was mysteriously losing green fruit. I highly suspect a clumsy opossum or a raccoon. Either way, I wanted to protect the rest of the crop. I bought some mesh bags and started covering all the new stuff. By a quick count I have about 25 - 30 bagged P. edulis fruits getting really swollen on the vine. They're hanging like white stockings above a field of bananas which are getting too big for me to pass through to my little greenhouse. I don't know what to do with them or what will happen if I leave them be. For now I'll fertilize them and figure it out later.

Banana Fanna Foe Fanna

I recently acquired a few Musa cultivars. I've never grown bananas, but they're giant herbs so how hard can it be. I have a pair of each of the following:

• M. 'Thousand Fingers'
• M. 'Gros Michel'
• M. 'Dwarf Iholena'

They're little ones, but they seem to be growing already just after potting them, so who knows what they'll turn in to and how fast they'll do it. I think I'll be up potting in no time.

Then I picked up one more that is quite large, and it's a dwarf variety. I don't know what it is, but it's a Thai cultivar.

Not Just Jaboticaba

I've recently been turned on to Jaboticabas...Jabuticabas...OK, this is why I don't like common names. Myrciaria...wait..they're Plinia now? The world outside Passiflora is confusing; just as confusing as Genus Passiflora I guess. It did take me a couple years to get it down to where I didn't sound like an idiot talking to the botanical bunch.

Anyway.

Jabos are a fantastic looking tree. They have bark that peels and gives the branches and trunk a mottled look like a Eucalyptus, but the grand part is that the flowers emerge from older growth including the trunk. They can cover it in little white puffy flowers that eventually turn into spherical fruits. It basically looks like the tree has third degree necrotic burns. That's not an appetizing analogy, so let's say it looks like grapes. Apparently the flesh of the fruit have a grape like texture covered by a thicker skin. And the taste is really good too, but I have yet to eat a single one. Nonetheless, I find myself, thanks to the generosity of a plant friend, with four plants and I'm looking for the fifth. Right now I have a large Plinia grimal (Grimal Jaboticaba), a small Plinia aureana (White Jaboticaba), a small Plinia x (Red Jaboticaba), and a tiny Plinia glomerata (Yellow Jaboticaba). As I said, I need the Plinia vexator (Blue Jaboticaba)...'cause I collect things.

In addition to the Jabos I picked up a Pouteria lucuma (Lucuma) and a Inga sp. (Ice Cream Bean). I don't know much about them yet. I'm excited to learn. And, I was given a couple of Diospyros nigra (Black Sapote), some Anona species and hybrids, and some rare banana varieties like 1000 finger Musa and Michel Gros Musa. I have no idea how well they'll do in my current yard. Hopefully I can keep them going until they're big enough to fruit at least once.

It was a fun weekend potting all of these plants. Now comes the hard part. Waiting to not kill them all.