Banana harvest in April

Arexy holding the banana harvest

Here is Arexy helping me harvest our bananas. We've gotten very lax about our banana plantation (as I call the lower level of our property). 'Lax ' is an understatement. I really mean that we do absolutely nothing. Zero, nada, zilch.

Arexy went down there for the first time trying to help us catch momma hen the other day. She spotted two bunches of bananas that had fallen over and were past prime time for cutting.

She asked if we could cut them. We went to find the indispensable machete (what do you people do in the US without a machete?). Arexy handled the machete work and we each carried one bunch up the steep hill. These things are heavy even though they aren't half the size of the stalks of the professional producers!

We don't eat a lot of bananas and even El Jefe doesn't care for them once they even begin to start turning ripe so we ended up giving away almost all of these to Arexy and Carlos.

I like growing them (or should I say 'watching them grow themselves'?) more than I like eating them but I like being able to help out people by giving them away, too. I made a lot of cinnamon-sugar topped banana muffins a few weeks ago. El Jefe liked those muffins a lot. I keep some of the overripe bananas in their skins the freezer for the chickens and for banana bread or muffins.

For eating cooked, I prefer platanos (plantains) but it seems that we've lost most of our plantain plants as the last several harvests have all been bananas. I'm particularly disappointed that we apparently didn't get any 'pups' from that fantastic fat Popoulu that made the terrific tostones. I have no idea where to find more of those plants. If anyone does, tell me, tell me!

Popoulu Banana (or plantain?)