How many times a year does a banana tree bear fruit?

I used to think banana trees produced bananas all year round. Just because I saw bananas at the market every day didn't mean the banana tree worked that way, but it was something I learned the hard way when I planted three banana suckers two years ago behind my house, just to learn how to grow, just like my uncle does.

It's a little off topic but economic hardship is because we're too dependant on others that are raising price of their goods ridiculously. If only I can make for myself the most necessary things in life, I'll be better off. I can make everything but at least the essentials like growing my own food crops. I don't have a farm like my uncle but I've got him and he's good at his job, has been teaching me a few things and I've been learning some stuff too on my own.

Banana trees produce fruit only once, as in one bunch of bananas in the life of a banana tree, and that banana tree dies back afterwards. I call it tree because of its size but they're actually perennial herbs.

The main plant grows from 9 to 12 months and sometimes longer before it produces fruit and when it harvests, the bananas that stem is done with the bananas. You cut that stem back and that's it.

Banana plants constantly grow new suckers. So, if you manage the suckers correctly, you can continuously harvest from the same site, but of course with different stems. My neighbour has a great rotation system where she has two or three banana stems at different stages of harvest and she can get possibly three or four harvest from her crop in a calendar year.

I did not know this and when I saw my first banana plant bloom, produce fruit and then wilt away, I thought I was doing something wrong with watering or fertilising or maybe the soil was bad. It took my uncle to come over and explain to me that this is just how banana plants grow.

So technically speaking, there is one harvest per individual plant. But depending on how you manage your banana suckers, you can have an unlimited number of harvests from your banana patch throughout the year, provided you're doing it correctly. I'm still working on the timing. So I'll start one this year too.

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