After the banana harvest was over, I noticed that a lot of banana leaves were attacked by caterpillars. These pests often appear during the rainy season. If left unchecked, the banana leaves will eventually run out. And it will affect the growth of the banana. I immediately cut off the banana leaves that were attacked by caterpillars. This will prevent the caterpillars from spreading everywhere. I will also collect the caterpillars to feed my chickens.
I also noticed that many banana shoots had sprung up. I had to cut them off and leave one or two new banana shoots. So that they can grow well. If we leave too many banana saplings sometimes the mother banana will not grow well. When the mother banana starts to bear fruit, she needs a lot of nutrients from the soil. If there are too many banana saplings growing around it, the mother banana will be deprived of nutrients and the fruit will be small.
In this garden, I planted several types of bananas. There are Ambon bananas, Kepok bananas, Horn bananas, Siem bananas, and Cavendish bananas. Unfortunately, some of the Cavendish bananas did not grow well and that made the fruit small. But there are also Kepok bananas with large fruits. Maybe it's because the trees are fertile and not attacked by pests. There was one more thing that couldn't be missed. Because this is the first time that the Horn bananas that I planted bear fruit. Very happy, isn't it? It looks like we'll be harvesting lots of bananas in a few months.
Besides bananas, I also planted avocados, papayas, and sweet potatoes. But I am very sad to see how many moles have sprung up.
A few months ago the rats killed all my sweet potato plants. So I failed to harvest. I don't want that to happen again. I'm trying several ways to deal with the rats but they haven't worked yet. Do you have any tricks to get rid of them? I really need your advice. That's all for today's gardening story. See you in my next content.