World’s Smallest Bananas ?

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Bananas (and Paw Paws) are gross feeders and drinkers, so if you’ve got a boggy spot in your garden, they are the perfect thing to plant. However, when the rain stops and the town goes on to Level 3 water restrictions – you have a problem.

My Musa Pisang Ceylon banana, fruiting for the first time this year, started spring with the most magnificent inflorescence I have ever seen, and I was hopeful of a bounteous crop. But a hot gusty wind bent the already dehydrated trunk over and my hopes were dashed.  I ended up with hands of what might be the world’s smallest bananas.

musa-pisang-bananas
Musa Pisang Ceylon inflorescence

I was quite surprised when one by one they started ripening, and they turned out to be the sweetest bananas I had ever tasted. Not wanting to waste them, I revisited one of my old posts from back in “the dreamtime” when we used to have regular floods and rainfall of between 1,500 and 3,000 mm per annum!

The banana bread recipe I linked to my old post no longer exists, so here is a link to my recipe which I have modified slightly to reduce the rather horrifying sugar content of the original. Still just as nice and with a rich caramel taste.

banana-bread-coolingbanana-bread-testing

Easy Banana Bread …

Published on by FJB2 Comments

 

banana-bread-cooling

Easy Banana Bread Recipe

This is an easy banana bread recipe. It has a light texture and a rich caramel taste.
It is the only banana bread I have baked which doesn’t sink substantially as it cools.

  • 120gm (4.2 oz) butter
  • 120gm (3/4 cup) brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 300gm (2 cups) self raising flour
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 1 heaped tsp bicarb soda
  • 1/4 cup golden syrup or treacle for a richer taste
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 30mls (1 fluid oz) coffee – a normal coffee machine shot
  • 400 gm very ripe bananas – mashed

Preheat the oven to 150C (300F) degrees. Grease and line a large loaf tin with paper and hang the paper over the sides to assist with removal.

  • Cream the butter and sugar in an electric mixer (which takes approximately 5 minutes, the colour will change to light brown)
  • Add eggs and beat well until combined (The mixture may seem curdled)
  • Add flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and bicarb and continue to mix until just combined.
  • Mix mashed bananas, golden syrup or treacle, vanilla and coffee together and then add to the mixture and stir until just combined.
  • Pour mixture into a LARGE greased and lined loaf tin
  • Bake for 60mins or until set – check about half way through and turn the tin if the bread is browning unevenly.

Store in the fridge for up to a week but serve at room temperature with cream, ice-cream or yoghurt and maybe some fresh strawberries.

Spring disappointment …

Published on by FJB4 Comments

It’s been a disappointing spring. The first two months being colder than usual, and November so far being hot and windy. Coupled with almost no rain, the result has been fewer than usual spring blooms.  Native bees do not appreciate this sort of weather.

After two months of impatient waiting, I finally allowed myself to check the honey super  on my native beehive – to discover no honey and a partially blocked hole. My local bee advisor suggests that they are not ready to fill the honey pot yet and that I need to wait impatiently for another couple of months.

Hoping the holes mean that they will fill the pot later?
Hoping the holes mean that they will fill the pot later?
In the meantime, just so there’s no doubt that I’m running a bee friendly garden, I’ve named my garden “maam dungaarrgundi” which means “place of bees” in the local indigenous Gumbaynggirr language. Native bees are welcome, stingless or otherwise.

Maam dungaarrgundi - place of bees in Gumbaynggirr
Maam dungaarrgundi – “place of bees” in Gumbaynggirr
A lack of flowers doesn’t stop the native bees from keeping up with the housekeeping – the Poo Patrol regularly brings out rubbish in the form of little pellets.  So I decided to do some housekeeping of my own. Thinking that the Bee Motel that I created several years ago had been all but abandoned, I moved it to a shadier spot and then decided to clean out the nest holes. Ooops – I very nearly killed a pretty Homalictus bee which emerged spluttering and covered in dust.  Thankfully, the rest of the holes only contained little dead bodies.

Entombed insects>
Dead bee?
Dust covered Homalictus
Poo Patrol – bringing out the rubbish

The European bees are busy in the pecan catkins, and hover flies are still around, but I’m not holding out much hope for a good native bee season unless we get some meaningful rain.  All very disappointing.

dscn0470-bee-in-pecan
European bee in pecan catkins

 

dscn0330-hover-fly
Hover fly on salvia

Pigface … who knew?

Published on by FJB4 Comments

Whilst I’m waiting (somewhat impatiently) for my native bees to provide me with a little pot of honey, I thought I’d write about the most fabulous bee attracting plant I have thus far encountered.

My volunteer gardening group planted some donated Pigface cuttings around a very ugly gas tank at our local hospital. We weren’t allowed to plant anything flammable on account of the bushfire risk, so Pigface seemed like a great idea.  We stuffed the cuttings into the gravel with a small handful of partly rotted wood mulch, stood back, said a small prayer to the Garden God and then walked away.

Well, this Pigface which we assume is Carpobrotus glaucescens, has turned out to be an absolute stunner.

pigface-flower

It seems to thrive on neglect, and grows enthusiastically in the worst conditions, but the thing that surprised us the most is its attractiveness to native bees.

Eleven Bees - mostly in focus miraculously
Eleven Bees – mostly in focus miraculously

The record bee count in one flower is thirteen. They are almost impossible to photograph as they enthusiastically go about their business filling their pollen pants.

Thirteen bees - a World Record?
Thirteen bees – a World Record?

I apologise for the wobble on this video, but it was taken on my iPhone, I didn’t have a tripod and I was kneeling in a bed of gravel (ouch!).

https://youtu.be/GoosDFYxjXA&rel=0

Needless to say, I now have cuttings planted all the way up one side of my driveway, and I’ll be interested to see if the fruit that follows the flowers does indeed look like a pig’s face and whether or not they taste like salty apples as claimed. I have a feeling they might be an acquired taste.

Lovely Pigface flowers
Pigface cutting
Field of Pigface at the hospital