As the sun was going down today I rushed outside in a panic to plant something. It started to rain too so in a hurry I decided to plant a Hawaiian plantain called Popoulu in an area we recently opened up.
When Julia was working at Waimea Middle School as a school garden teacher she became friends with one of the custodians. At the end of the school year she gave Julia ‘a special hawaiian variety from the family’. A single keiki plant that moved with us to our farm.
These plantains grow prolifically and produce these oblong fruits that we enjoy eating unripe like a potato. You can also wait till it ripens and it forms sort of a sweet jelly-like center. Our favorite thing to make are fritters. We simply grate the unripe bananas fry them like a pancake on both sides and put toppings on like cheese or sometimes even plain with a little salt and ketchup.
From that one keiki we now have about over 10 clusters growing. We always have bananas to eat and to share. I’m planning on planting about 20 more because why not?
Originally posted on 2021-01-05, part of the daily planting journal behind Ha’a Chocolate’s food forest on Hawai’i Island.