Stanofh,

Congratulations on your ice cream banana bloom. From my own experience, bananas take about 4 months to ripen. So, that means by October you should have your harvest. You've indicated your planting zone as 10a. Where I am, it's 9b and where October is still a rather pleasant month with no chills at all. So, I would imagine, yours should do well there.

I'm glad to see your bananas being planted close to the house. That's the way to go. Those that are planted close to my house fruit rather regularly for me.

By the way, I also have an ice cream banana in a huge pot and it's right now blooming too. I dug it out from the ground because it wasn't doing anything for many years and I was wondering what was wrong with this variety. Those bananas that have been planted close to the house are all of the Raja Puri variety and they really thrive well there.

I love the pictures posted--post more when the fruit start developing. All the best to your first edible banana harvest!

Congrats stanofh, that is so exciting! I've had banana plants in a large pot, but each year they just grow to about 4 ft., die back for the winter, and repeat. I probably need to pull out some of the pups to give one plant more space in the pot to grow. I had a 1000 ? in the ground, but found out too late that the gophers had chewed up all the roots.

Thanks BF. I would turn cartwheels if I have banana's in October.

Eloise,I hear your pain. I tried Goldfinger years ago. Maybe a week later they were wilting..yep,nothing under them.

These are on the opposite part of the property. Helping with warm too. Sun all day.