A granular slow release fertilizer high in potassium is best. I've also used a granular 10-10-10 on them, and they responded well. They are heavy feeders.

D, I only have one banana clump and it is very productive, usually 2 at a time. After harvesting 2 bunches in the winter, I have another one growing now.

I usually put the leftover tomato soil after the season is over but if I have to use a fertilizer on them I would use the slow release fertilizer with micronutrients, I have the 13-13-13 and that is what I use when I mix the tomato soil.

Silvia

Thanks, guys, but I don't think slow release will work up here in Gainesville. We have to push them to grow quickly before they freeze back. Maybe a slow release with potassium supplemented with some high-nitrogen something, like lawn fertilizer? I remember when I worked at Duke's Garden Center Lyn always said that you fed them lawn fertilizer because they loved nitrogen. I did that with my ones down there in 9b, and supplemented with some potassium. I only had blooms one time, and the whole bloom stalk just rotted because I forgot to cut off the bloom. Never paid much attention to them after that, just let them be ornamentals. I just want these to have fruit so I can see what kind they are, since dwarf Cavendish isn't supposed to grow up here, and this one seems pretty cold hardy.

Slow-release would likely still be best-anywhere where ground is sandy. Quick-release items just go straight down to the water table in stuff like that.

But my main reason for chiming in here is to stress-once again-that the difference between fertilizer brands like Miracle Grow and a bunch of other lesser-known brands is the size of their advertising budget. All of these products use the same raw ingredients, all of them will do about the same. MG is just a whore when it comes to market share, that's all.

The recommendation to up potash is a good one. BTW, wood ashes are a source for that nutrient. Got any of those?

Tom, no wood ashes, although if I had a fire pit, I could get some, but that's just too much trouble. Potash and potassium are not the same thing in the NPK. Potash (P) pushes blooms and roots and Potassium (K) is something bananas especially need. Probably need both, actually. The soil where they are planted isn't particularly sandy. It's been amended for a long time, is heavily mulched and is in shade part of the day, so it actually stays pretty moist.

Not so. Elemental potassium does not exist in nature. Potassium is highly reactive and is always-yes always-bound up with some other element. The "potash" is the form that is found in soils. And it is the source of potassium, one of the big three nutrients needed by plants. Trust me, I pretty much wrote the book on this stuff! Or let me rephrase that....I used to teach these concepts. I don't know everything but I do know that I'm not wrong about any of this!

It is also far too simplistic the way some guides say Nutrient A causes foliage growth, Nutrient B causes root growth, and Nutrient C is what causes plants to bloom. Nature simply does not work that way. For example, phosphates used to be described as "bloom boosters". This is nonsense through and through. Please, if you would like to know more about this, do some reading. It's WAY more complicated than that!

Oh, just saw something else in your post. No, the P is for phosphates, or phosphorus, which once again, like potassium, is never found in nature as a pure element. The numbers on the bag are N-P-K and they stand for nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium...each and every time till kingdom come, amen.

A pure chunk of either of those metallic elements, (phosphorus or potassium) if exposed to air, would explode violently. They are FAR too reactive to exist as pure elements.

Not to discount anything anyone said here (for one, I haven't read through it all yet), but if you ask on the banana forums, there are some people there who are quite knowledgeable when it comes to pushing bananas. One thing I read is that when it comes to pushing bananas, there is a shift in fertilizers when the hand starts to form. Personally, being on a sandhill, I have no desire to fertilize that heavily so I just try to keep the soil around my bananas as fertile as I can within reason, so I didn't make a note of what this shift was, but it has something to do with lowering nitrogen while boosting one of the others. Again, the people on the bananas forum can help out with that.

Tom, I was wrong about the potash being the P, no doubt. Have no idea why I wrote that. I have read a lot about it. I have a degree in horticulture, but to be honest, I never really tried to write a book about it. All the chemistry of it bores me. I hate chemistry, and the only way I got through it was to memorize everything and regurgitate it on tests. I know just enough to be dangerous, and that's all I want to know. I have no desire to delve into the minute combinations of elements to get the perfect growth and the perfect blooms. Mother Nature isn't perfect, I don't want to be either. :)

The biggest bunch of bananas, and the only Dwarf Cavendish, I ever had was when I piled four feed bags full of semi-rotted horse bedding around a single trunk plant.

I must be the exception, but I never fertilized my bananas and couldn't keep up with all the bananas lol! But I understand North Florida is different and you're pushing zones etc.

No problem dirty. I make mistakes too! You guys all know way more than I about actually growing bananas. Don't get into that much up here in Wisconsin, lol!

Interesting for me to see ripening bananas in some what I call "go-to-hell" places in and around Fort Myers. For instance, at Lake Park-and this was in January-were plants bearing large clusters of fruit. I could be wrong but it seems likely that those plants receive minimal care. This is a rather nice botanical garden area so maybe they do get more attention than I'm thinking, but there they were, waiting to get ripe.

In North Fl you have to grow the varieties of bannas that will flower and have the fruit mature quickly as well as be hardy here. If the pseudostem freezes to the ground totally, they may need to kinda start over again to get fruit. I have some bananas that border a tree line so they get sun most the day kinda slanting on one side. The trees still protect them from heavy frost. So I dont lose do much of the stems/trunks most years.

I have Raja Puri and it will flower and is pretty hardy. Sometimes the bananas are still pretty small by frost. This year we had a longer growing season with little frost, so the bananas did mature.

Dwarf Namwah aka what is being sold as Ice Cream banana here in the U S. will mature in time for frost. It gets taller than the raja puri and makes more pups.

There are some other good varieties that should work such as the dessert banana, Veinte Cohol, which is supposed to fruit rapidly.

They are heavy feeders and if you want them to fruit, you need to push the fertilizer, water, and make sure they are getting enough sun. They need good drainage.

I usually put black cow, rabbit or chicken manure in the holes when I plant them. Then top them off montly with it. They also get Miracle Grow or fish fertilzer or whatever Im feeding the other plants. Every month or so. I dont use the time release stuff on them cuz the chickens come scratch it up and eat it lol.

~sjn

That's one thing I envy you guys about-being able to grow bananas and all the other tropical fruits. What a joy it must be to pick an orange or a banana right off the tree. Of course, it's all envy. I'm sure a lot of you folks miss things like apple trees, that do well up north. All is trade-offs.

I have no idea what variety this is. It was here when I got here, and the guy whose GF used to live here said he didn't know either. It is pretty cold hardy, because it didn't freeze back this year at all. Some of the leaves burned, but it didn't die back. I guess I'll just have to try pushing it and see what I get. Like I said, I'm not sure it even gets enough sun, but there's nothing I can do about that. I need it where it is for the shade it provides.