Over-wintering Musa Ensete maurelii

 It probably won't be too bad here on the Lizard, Cornwall , but the forecast is for much colder temperatures from this evening .

Musa Ensete maurelii is a tender variety of Banana and will not survive outside over winter .

I decided to get the Banana plants out and into their over-wintering corner in the shed . I'd rather do it while it is not too cold and the ground soft from the showers we had yesterday evening .

They haven't grown as big this year due to the heat wave and drought  . My efforts for watering going only to the vegetable garden .

This little Robin flew down to me as soon as I took out my garden fork  , eagerly awaiting grubs .

This was extremely heavy ,but I made sure to get out and not damage as much of the roots as possible .

I know that some people trim the roots and cut off the leaves , but I try not to damage any of my plants as best I can . 

I plant them up again , with some of the earth they were growing in and a mixture of spent compost that I had used to grow my Tomato plants in and a couple of good handfuls of fresh multi-purpose compost .

I gave them a little rain water from the water-but to settle them in , but not too much , as the earth was quite damp from the recent showers .

Then they go onto wooden pallets , under cover and surrounded with polystyrene that I have saved from packaging .

They have just enough light from the clear plastic corrugated roofing .

(I make sure to move them away from the leaking bit of the new roof )

I water them very sparingly over the winter months and not at all if the weather is freezing . 

My aim is to just keep them ticking over . This works for me and these banana plants are ....hmm ..quite a few years old now ..... maybe six , seven years or more . 

I also made a start pulling all the grass and weeds from between the paving slabs that surround my greenhouse . Loathsome job !

Weeded and tidied all the pots and tubs up there too . All of these things should have gone into the ground during the Summer , but it became too hot for me to work in the garden , so I had just dragged them all together around the water-but...which also soon dried up . I thought I might lose many of my plants , but they are looking a bit better now for the drop  of rain we've had .

I tried to fix the cracked window in the greenhouse roof .....

I thought that if I got some Copydex glue and squeezed it along the line of the crack , that it would run into the crack , set and job done . Well it sets like rubber doesn't it ? It does !  

I couldn't find my tube of Copydex , but found a big squeezy bottle of children's craft PVA glue . 

Same thing ...non ?

O.k so it ran down the window and I expected it to set and then I had in my mind to run a sharp knife along it to neaten it up .

I thought it wouldn't take long to set and left it for the night .

I could hear it raining during the night and felt quite smug with myself for fixing it .

Next morning I went to fill my watering can to water the salad leaves I am growing in the shed ...

....and this happened !   Bubbles ...lots of bubbles !

I looked up to see that all the glue had dissolved and run down the pie into the water-but !

So for the first time this year , the water-but was full to the brim and I had no choice but to empty it !

I,ve got it all cleaned out now , but I am back to square one with the cracked window  .

I better go and work it out again ! ( as the song from Oliver goes 🙄 )

I'm now thinking sticky tape of some sort , duct tape ..or maybe Super Glue .....

Wishing you all a great week my friends !