Bananas and Dreams of Cantaloupes

Back in the United States, during a limited time frame, I was able to go outside beside the house and pick from plums off one of the two plum trees I had planted there. One of the trees produced fruit in June; both trees blossomed every spring, but one had not produced any plums before we sold the house.

The trees are different varieties and are barely years old, so I suppose it's possible that the tree that hadn't produced fruit will one day.




Here in Sibulan, I can still go out into the back yard and fetch fresh fruit; only, here, instead of picking plums, we can pick bananas.

The particular bunch pictured here was harvested a few days ago. I wasn't the one who picked them - I'm not exactly sure which family member did. That doesn't stop me, however, from eating what I can.

This bunch is out back, on a table in an area referred to as the "dirty kitchen". The dirty kitchen is what the Filipinos call an area behind the house where foods can be cooked with firewood or charcoal. A sort of BBQ area, if you will.

These particular bananas aren't vey large; they're only slightly longer than my longest finger. They're still very sweet and I'm quite fond of them. My sister in-law pan fries them for breakfast (then sprinkled with sugar) I like the bananas cooked that way, but eating the fruit raw is good enough for me.

I have one or two relatives back home who will not be jealous of me because of this. There are actually folks out there who don't like bananas. I know, strange huh, but true.

In an earlier post , I mentioned that I've planted cantaloupe seeds. With luck, I should have cantaloupes in about 90 days or so. I can hear some of my friends from Georgia now, "Big deal. We grow cantaloupes here." Maybe so, but here, there will be cantaloupes pretty much year around. I won't ever have to worry about frost killing the plants. The only problem might be too much rain at certain times of the year. Not having lived here for a year yet, I'm not too sure about that.

I promised "before and after" photos. Still no seedlings to photograph. The cantaloupe seed packet says to expect 5 to 10 days for the seeds to sprout. It's only been two. Next week, when I have cantaloupe seedlings, I'll take my camera outside for the first shots.

Until then,I see little reason to photograph dirt.

The Plum Trees.

During the Fall of 2010, I planted plum trees on our property. I vaguely, sorta, kinda, knew in the back of my mind that I'd need two trees for pollination. Not being nearly knowledgeable enough, I didn't pay as much attention in picking my two trees as I might have otherwise.

After putting the trees into the ground and removing the tags, I learned that picking just any two varieties wasn't enough. Not only did I have to pick two different varieties for cross - pollination, but some groupings are considered better than others. Fortunately, I accidentally managed to pick two varieties ideally suited for producing fruit. 1) Burbank and 2) Santa Rosa.

Unfortunately, because I removed the tags, I have no idea which is the Burbank and which is the Santa Rosa.

The first spring, I knew I'd not be getting fruit. I was a bit puzzled, though, how the two could cross pollinate since one tree bloomed a week or ten days before the other. I noticed again this time that the two did not blossom together. How could/would they produce fruit?

Surprisingly, one has already put on beaucoup fruit. If the second one fails to produce anything, the fruit on the first will be more than enough for me, my wife and son. I don't if the second one will produce this season or not........I'm hardly an expert.

Now, I only need to worry about insects, squirrels and birds eating more than I think they should (that number would be zero, BTW).