Shigeno in Takayama, Gifu Prefecture, holds a waist-high banana tree which can be grown at home to bear fruit.
Kotaro Yamada
How about experiencing banana picking in your house?
Okuhida Farm in Takayama, Gifu Prefecture, sells banana plants which can be grown at home to bloom and bear edible fruit.
The farm offers budding trees of Super Mini Banana, a small-size variety which grows to a height of around 60 cm, planted in 30-cm plant pots. If grown under sunlight in a room with a temperature of 5 degrees centigrade or higher, bananas on the plants will become ripe and sweet for eating in about three months, according to the farm.
Okuhida Farm, which is run by a Japanese-style inn with a hot spring, grows banana trees in two greenhouses. The greenhouses are heated by hot spring water that is flown through pipes running through them to keep the temperature inside at 30 degrees with nearly 100 percent humidity all year round.
The farm sells 350 plants a year, but because the trees are becoming popular, people have to wait for six months after making purchase orders.
Ryota Shigeno, 30, who heads the farm, says he hopes people will enjoy both looking at and eating bananas, as they are easy to grow.
The price is JPY15,900 per plant including delivery charges (JPY17,400 for Hokkaido and Okinawa Prefecture).
The farm also offers young banana plants of around 10 different varieties. For more information, call 0578-89-2404.
The farm offers young banana plants of around 10 different varieties.
(March 16, 2014)