“Nicholas Burtner discusses how to build a banana circle, how to plant a poly culture guild around a banana circle, how to work strategy and time within a banana circle, and how to link banana circles together for true abundance in farming and growing bananas.”
“One of the most potent and exemplary designs of tropical permaculture is the banana circle. It has multiple functions that include the following but are not limited to them just as Bill Mollison once said: (the yield is theoretically unlimited, it is only our imagination and information that does)
• Compost pile (anti-burning of organic material)
• Food production
• Biomass production
• Greywater- from a sink or an outdoor shower right on top
• Habitat for wildlife
• Integration into mandala gardens
• Community interaction (as we experienced in Malaysia with harvesting material from one neighbours burn pile)”
More at the source: A Permaculture Design Course Handbook
After about two years the banana growth around the banana circle has been phenomenal — probably the fastest growth of any part of our garden. The plants love the moisture and all the nutrients from the compost pile in the center (no turning of the compost required). So I can highly recommend this method.
I too have too wAit for the rainy season but starting to dig for one cuz it’s down from some gray water run off
This is a great idea ..just figured 2 areas ..to do this…
Any more ideas like this .? Keep them coming
I read about this stuff almost daily. There are lots of great ideas on sites such as Permies.com. This particular idea was perfect for our situation. We had an unused area of the garden and needed some more bananas, so I jumped in and made one over 3 days. It would have gone faster except there was a big mound of clay dirt in the way that had to be shoveled by hand. We filled the hole with discarded ‘banana trash’ that someone threw on the side of the road. That’s the beginning of our compost pile in the center.
What an excellent tutorial! Definitely going to try this…
Ours is almost done! I worked on it for the last 3 days. We’ll plant in April.