Banana Ripening Update

Our bananas looked like this
in December

The VegHeadz had several good bunches of bananas on their plants last fall, but they did not have time to fill out completely when cold weather hit, stopping their development.  

While bananas ripen better off the tree, in order to reach their full potential they should have plump sides before cutting the stalk down. We assumed that because they were not fully developed, they would not be edible if we tried to ripen them.

Our ever-curious gardeners decided they weren’t going to abide by that assumption, and several of them took bananas home on January 10 to ripen in different situations to see what the results would be.

Cathy ripened hers inside hanging on a coat rack.  It took less than two weeks.   About a dozen ripened and Cathy reported they were firm and sweet.  They were small as they did not develop further after cutting from the plant. The very small bananas turned black as they yellowed, but the larger ones did a bit better (photo). 

Cathy’s ripe bananas

Rebecca ripened hers in a paper bag inside and it took about the same amount of time.  

Peggy hung hers in her unheated garage and they also ripened nicely, but took about six weeks.  She had about a dozen finger-size bananas ripen.  

Peggy’s ripe bananas 

The bottom line—don’t give up on your bananas even if they are not fully developed.  This is the usual result as weather turns cold.  Occasionally bananas will have time to fully develop in our area giving us more bananas than we can use.  It doesn’t happen very often, but we’ve learned we can still enjoy home grown bananas most years.