Banana Stems

We harvested the bananas in the garden last Friday.  I will disappoint readers of my earlier post by admitting that I did not cook the banana flower – my excuse is that the flower was too small. Here is a photo of one of the leaves instead.

I thought we might need steps to reach the bananas, but we didn’t – the branches of the banana tree can be bent down to ground level by a couple of strong gardeners. Gardener Shankar harvested the bananas.  Then he got to work demolishing the entire tree with a sickle just like the tools from this post.

Then we took up Gardener Shankar’s suggestion of consigning the banana fruit to a wholesale banana shop for quick ripening. Last year we made our own storage box in the garage, and waited impatiently for two weeks for the bananas to ripen.   I don’t know what the shop will do, apart from store our fruit in a really hot room. Maybe they will just swap them for some ripe fruit?

As well as the fruit, we were harvesting the banana stem.  Our driver told us that he believed banana stems to have great health benefits in preventing and treating kidney stones.

The outer layers of the stem were stripped away, and the sickle was put to use again.


We weren’t impressed with our stem – like the flower it was too small.  But Dayalan went home with some pieces for cooking anyway.

Blades Sharpened, Watches Repaired

I am flying to the UK next month, so I am starting my Christmas shopping in the markets of Bangalore.  Friends and family reading this back home, do you have any requests?

Actually I think my Dad might like this stall where tools are sold and sharpened.

Does anyone need a watch repaired? I have been looking for an excuse to shop at the next shop – it’s so small!