Bananas contain essential vitamins needed by ones body.
The following steps instruct on how to plant bananas.
Choose a sunny and warm planting place with well-drained soil. The California Rare Fruit keep it warm. However, a place with warm temperatures and little wind is preferable to planting Growers suggest planting a banana tree near a warm building to protect it from the wind and help next to a building. Do not choose a building that blocks out too much sun; planting a banana tree to the south of a building ensures that it will get enough light.
Spread a layer of compost over the planting area and till it into the soil. Bananas prefer rich soil with good drainage, and compost helps improve your soil's drainage and nutrient levels.
Weed the planting area so that the new banana tree does not have as much competition for moisture and nutrients.
Plant the banana tree sucker by digging a small hole, placing the end of the new stalk in the hole and filling in the hole with soil around the stalk. Commercial nurseries usually cut off the tops of suckers, so all or most of a small stubby sucker may need to go under the ground. If a thin stem sticks out of the wide base, plant the sucker so that the stem sticks out above ground. Texas A&M University suggests planting ornamental trees 2 to 3 feet apart and spacing trees for fruit production at least 8 feet apart from each other.
Water the plant regularly. Banana trees require lots of irrigation because of their large leaves, according to the California Rare Fruit Growers and the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. Water it deeply, and do not let the soil completely dry out. However, do not water the tree so much that it sits in standing water.
Fertilize the tree once every two months with a 3-1-6 ratio fertilizer or its equivalent, such as a 6-2-12 ratio. Start by using 1/2 pound of fertilizer. The University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences suggests increasing the fertilizer amount slightly each time until the tree flowers and fruits. When the banana tree begins to flower, it should receive 5 to 6 pounds of fertilizer.
Prune the tree to remove any new shoots, as the California Rare Fruit Growers suggest. Fruit producers can allow one shoot to continue growing when the tree is six to eight months old to replace the old stalk for the next growing season.
Cut off the old tree stalk after it produces fruit. The new shoot will produce more fruit in the following year than the old stalk, so fruit growers trim off the old one and allow one shoot to grow. Trim it to a height of approximately 30 inches, and then remove it completely when it dies off in several weeks. If you're growing bananas for ornamental purposes, you can skip this step and allow the old tree to keep growing.
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