How to Grow Bananas Well

Growing bananas is like growing vegetables. Bananas need sun, water, and food, just in higher doses. Let me expand on that:

A rack on my personal favorite variety of bananas in our yard at the moment, 'Mona Lisa'. (taken in 2025)

1. Sun

   The most important factor for your banana growing conditions is sun. Your bananas should get 6+ hours with 8 hours producing bigger racks. If you put your bananas under a tree, or if they're hiding in some shady part of your yard your banana will fruit, but the rack will be comparatively meek.

2. Water

   The second most important factor for bananas is water, although water and food (good soil) are interrelated- dark, rich soil hold water much better than Orlando sandy soil or the more desertish parts of Orlando like Clermont where cactus grow. If you can grow St. Augustine you can grow a banana, if not your soil might be to dry.

3. Food

   The last ingredient for your "bananas for a lifetime" recipe is food. Like I said food goes hand in hand with water. Bananas love compost. Here are some suggestions for feeding you bananas.

4. Lakes and Ponds

   1. Oh man, if you can plant your bananas in a sunny spot right near a lake or a pond, this is money. Just make sure you can access the spot alright so the bananas have space to spread roots and also so you can prune and pick the bananas.

5. Banana circle

   1. At two gardens I helped build we surrounded our compost piles with bananas. This creates a great symbiotic relationship, the bananas shade the compost, the compost feeds and hydrates the bananas, and the bananas eat the compost so much I believe they help digest the compost.

   
   

   

   A "banana circle" at my aquaponics job where we built our compost.

   
   

6.  Mulch

1. I'm big on mulch. It's great for the garden, it's more organic than a lot of fertilizers, and its free. I plan to make a post about mulch. But bananas love a thick layer of mulch.

   
   

   

   Me planting bananas when my food forest was in it's first year.

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Did you know that bananas are actually herbs?

This is because they have a succulent stem, not a woody stem.

Did you know that bananas are actually also classified as berries?

If you want to know what each of your fruits are technically classified, I don't think I need to write a whole blog post as there are scientific websites with articles on this. This one from Piedmont Master Gardners is really good, goodness fruit classifications are deep, and quite interesting! Lots of yummy facts in this read.