Going "Bananas" for Tropical Fruit

The fruit is upon us -- almost literally! We have an abundance of fruit to eat. The banana trees that Dennis planted are now giving a bountiful harvest. The stalks look good and it won't be long until we cut them off the tree and start eating.

Banana trees only produce fruit once, and then they die. As the stalk of bananas matures on the tree, the tree itself starts to perish. Before the banana stalk matures, however, the tree "births" another tree at its base. That tree will them grow up and produce bananas, thereby continuing the production of yummy bananas.

We have four stalks that are maturing right now. Once they start to ripen a bit, we will cut the stalk down and put the bunches of bananas in our store room, so that the birds don't help themselves to the tasty fruit.

The jambo fruit is in full season right now. The many trees around the campus are loaded with the tasty red fruit. Here is a branch of one of those trees.

Many of the Jambo trees are very tall, so in order to pick the fruit you need a long stick or pole and either a basket on it, or a friend down below to help catch. Here is Hannah and her friend Karina picking some jambos from the neighbor's tree. Neighbor boy, George, stands out of the way so he doesn't get beaned on the head with either a fruit or the stick...again.

You can just eat the Jambo off the ground too, but sometimes there are worms that find them first. And the only thing worse than finding a worm in your jambo is finding half a worm in it.

"You picked a good one, Hannah! No half a worm in there!"

Here is our neighbor boy, Finn, showing us a nice, ripe jambo.

We've eaten a lot of jambos. I cut up a ton of them to freeze for later use too. We've enjoyed Jambos in crisps, jellies, smoothies, and by themselves.