Grow your own at home: Bananas

**Rescheduled - NEW DATE Thursday 24th October, 5.30-7.30pm**

Bananas are one of natures greatest organically wrapped, nutritional snacks! And they're imported to Aotearoa New Zealand from overseas at more than 70-million kilograms each year. Yet, in many parts of the country the climate is perfect to grow your own! What's more, they can go from planting to plate in less than two years, they fruit year round, and with a fraction of the carbon footprint. Home grown bananas are the gift that keeps on giving!

Join expert tutor Ellen Schindler at Kelmarna Community Farm for this introduction to all things bananas. This workshop will show you how simple and beneficial it can be to grow your own bananas, even in smaller spaces or containers! Come away with the fundamentals of how to grow them, how to care for them, and recipe ideas for how to savour every last bit of the plant

What to expect:

This two-hour crash course starts with how to establish a banana circle, covering general learning about bananas and their growing needs, including strategies for growing successfully in small spaces or containers. Ellen will explain an in-situ banana circle in the food forest on site to help give you a clear picture how to best choose, prepare, and maintain a growing space for bananas.

You will not only cover the mechanics and the benefits of banana circles as a regenerative source of food but also look at how individual plants can be grown to fruit in even extremely small areas or containers. Along with the basics of planting and care, Ellen will also share tips for how to use different parts of the banana plant in the kitchen, including beyond just the fruit.

Tickets include: instruction and demonstrations, for propagating, caring for, and tips for cooking with bananas; one banana pup (with preorder).

Banana Pup Pre-order:

To help you get started with or even expand your banana project, there is the opportunity to preorder an organic banana pup with your ticket. These will be sourced from our own certified organic food forest here at Kelmarna Community Farm and will be ready to take home after the workshop.

So if you're keen, then be sure to register with a ‘+ Banana Pup’ ticket option to secure one of your own!

What to bring:

• a refillable water bottle
  
• weather appropriate gear
  
• a pen and notepad (to take notes, if you like)

Ellen Schindler is a passionate gardener and community organiser. Since 2006 she has nurtured her home garden in Sandringham into a productive food system with about 55 fruit trees of all types and sizes, beehives, chooks, and vegetable patches. She is also a committed volunteer who has been instrumental in establishing the Homestead and the Dignan Street Community gardens in Pt Chevalier and has been involved in planting and maintaining fruit trees in parks and grass berms across Sandringham.

Ellen loves to indulge her interests and push boundaries of what she can accomplish at home, applying knowledge and skills to put environmental values into practise for the benefit of health, community, and planet. Ellen believes that healthy food should be accessible to everyone, and teaching hands-on DIY workshops is one of her favourite ways to achieve this goal!

Ellen has cultivated many bananas in her own and local food forests as well as in containers, experimenting in creating opportunities for valuable food production in every possible space available. She also has good friends who have exposed her to culinary delights that draw from their traditional cuisines to cook with different parts of the plant beyond just the delicious fruit!

At Kelmarna, we strive to make education accessible for everyone. So, where possible, we offer a 35% discount on our workshops to valid Community Services Card holders. If you book one of these tickets, please email us a copy of your valid Community Services Card, and remember to bring it along to the workshop. Please note that this option does not include Super Gold Card holders.

We look forward to seeing you on the farm soon!

Kelmarna Community Farm Workshops Program.