Entry written by Logan Sander
 |
| A wild banana found in the forest near our house |
Did you know that Sri Lanka is home
to one of the wild ancestors of the banana? We’ve even had the opportunity to
try a variety of wild banana still found growing in the nearby forest. Bananas
and plantain (not differentiated in Sri Lanka) are homegarden mainstays
throughout the tropics and Pitikele is no exception. Only a few homegardens
have no banana plants, while the majority contain a few to over a hundred
plants. Owing to this importance, we thought it fitting that the first major
planting effort in the mid-level tree garden (Zone 2, from a previous entry) be
the bananas.
 |
| The flesh was tasty, but it was mostly seeds. |
In this region, bananas are
generally cultivated on concave slope positions with deep, rich soils and abundant
moisture. Only a few small areas of our homegarden match this description, but
I believe that with sufficient preparation and attention we can still make them
work throughout our site. A benefit of growing bananas is that their leaves and
herbaceous stems provide wonderful mulch and they self-propagate by producing
vegetative shoots which become new stems once the original tree has fruited and
died back (strictly speaking, bananas are herbs as they produce no woody
tissues, but I tend to think of them as trees in the homegarden). The fruit of
cultivated bananas are sterile (the little black specks found in a banana are
the aborted seeds), thus all homegarden banana reproduction occurs from these
new vegetative shoots. Over time, cultivating bananas will create opportunities
for other homegarden plants that need this improved soil and the shady
microclimate that the growing plants provide. Plus, perhaps because of their
familiarity to us, we eat a lot of them.
The main challenge to planting
bananas at the field station is the poor, droughty soil. Almost everywhere I’d
like bananas to be, we have rocky subsoil, exposed during the construction of
the field station that is far too nutrient and moisture poor for such a hungry herb.
Our local friends report that they would never grow bananas in a few of the
locations we’re attempting to, though I have seen large, apparently successful
plants on similar patio areas in some of our neighbors’ homegardens. Shortly
after arriving here last fall we planted a few bananas next to our patio in an
area with this subsoil – after 5 months a few have died and the rest have grown
a few small leaves – not nearly good enough results for a “demonstration
homegarden.” To get around this, we’re excavating large
 |
| Our banana planting "ingredients" |
holes (2-3’ around, 2’
deep) and filling them with a rich mixture of decomposed leaf litter, topsoil
from the forest edge and kekila
fernlands, and compost purchased from the closest town (Kalawana). It’s not a
perfect solution, but with repeated applications of mulch and compost I believe
it will support the plants enough for them to grow and produce fruit. I’m
hoping that over the years the soils around the bananas will slowly increase in
moisture and nutrient holding capacity, though I’m under no illusion that we
can completely shift the development of what are surely some of the poorest
soils in the valley. Also, in a few years the locations of these bananas could
be suitable spots to locate fruit tree seedlings, with somewhat improved soil
conditions and a good microclimate for establishing a tree.
 |
| Tillekaratne filling a banana hole |
We (meaning: mostly Tillekaratne)
dug 17 large holes across our homegarden for bananas. We were able to locate
around 8 of these in areas we’d expect bananas to be grown: along the river
terrace near the nursery, and in slightly wetter concave swales. Around each hole
we built a small wire-mesh fence (to keep out wild boar) and we filled the
holes with topsoil, compost and mulch. There is seemingly an infinite supply of
leaf litter on our river’s beach near the bridge – each flood deposits several
inches of leaves or rodu there. Over
the weeks between floods, it breaks down into coarse, sandy mulch. Some days, in
the cool mornings and evenings, we haul a few bags of it up to the homegarden to
mix with soil and compost.
 |
| Logan hauling leaf litter |
As a completely unscientific experiment, I pushed to
include more compost in some of the holes than we were locally advised to do
(attaining around a 1:1 ratio with topsoil). Our local teachers thought this
was too “hot” for the plants and a waste of compost, a locally valuable
resource that, in our case, we are purchasing. I feel that because we’re
planting some of these bananas in very marginal soils, we should perhaps invest
a little more in these plants.
The 17 banana trees we are planting
(in addition to the 6 we already have) will include 9 varieties, but there are many more throughout the country. Some closely
resemble the Cavendish cultivars commonly found in North American grocery
stores. Others are much sweeter or have a better texture. One starchy variety
that I don’t much care for,“allu kesel,”
is served as a curry. The prize, fetching a premium in local markets, is “ambul kesel.” Somie brought us our
first from Kuduwa last week. We’ve even heard of a variety with fruit that is several feet
long! With luck, next year’s fellows will be blessed with a steady supply of
tasty ones from our homegarden.
Banana varieties in our homegarden:
Ambul kesel Ambun kesel Anamalu kesel Kolikottu kesel Rat kesel Rata kolikutu kesel
Sini kesel Suandel kesel Sudu kochi kesel
(also called Malu kesel)
 |
| Preparing a fence post for pounding into the ground |
 |
| Pounding fence posts into a banana site for our hopefully boar-proof fence |
 |
| Our largest banana specimen on its way to the field station |
 |
| Banana plants in route to the field station from a nearby homegarden |
