How Bananas are grown

Bananas don't grow on trees! In fact, banana plants have no wood fiber. The banana plant is the world's largest herb and a member of the lily family.
	To grow, bananas require warm tropical sun, rich soil, and plenty of water.
	Bananas begin to grow inside a large bud that grows up from the roots of the plant. A banana plant takes less that 18 months to grow from a small shoot to the point where its fruit is ready for harvesting. It will produce only one "stem" of bananas - once these have been cut, the plant dies and rots back into the soil.
The bananas are cut from the plant whilst they are still green - if they were left to ripen on the plant, they would be over ripe by the time that they reached their market, which is quite likely to be on the other side of the globe! The green fruit is removed from the stem and washed in gigantic cold water baths. This removes any insects and plantation debris and cools the bananas down. Because the fruit continues to produce its own heat as it ripens, even after it has been harvested, the race is on to keep the fruit cool so that it doesn't ripen during the ocean voyage. Once it has been washed and packed into cardboard boxes, it is put into lagre pallets and lifted gently into the ship's refrigerated hold.