Bounty of bananas bloom near Yukon-B.C. border

A farmer in B.C.'s far north has successfully grown nearly 200 bananas in his greenhouse, just south of the B.C.-Yukon border.

Yukon Soles runs a vegetable farm in Fort Nelson, 130 kilometres south of the Yukon, primarily growing produce like cucumbers, potatoes and cabbage.

But when he spotted a pair of banana seedlings for sale at his local grocery store, he decided to give them a try.

"I just potted them up ... And the rest is history," he told CBC Radio West host Sarah Penton.

When Soles first bought the bananas in February 2021, the two plants were in a six-inch pot. As they grew, he transferred them to larger containers.

Eventually, they grew big enough that he knew he'd have to plant them in the ground.

So in early summer 2021, he took the plants outside and placed them in a greenhouse, supplying them with plenty of compost and chicken manure — but he didn't expect them to bear fruit quite so soon, or even at all.

"Tropical plants don't often have what they need in these places … I didn't really have any expectations."

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, most of the world's bananas come from warm-weather countries in Central and South America, as well as the Philippines in Southeast Asia.

The plants benefit from high humidity and long hours of sunlight, and steady temperatures of at least 22 C overnight and 26 C during the day.

Soles says he didn't give his bananas quite as warm conditions to grow in, with the greenhouse's average temperature sitting at around 18 C with heat supplied by an outdoor wood boiler.

Still, it was enough to protect them against the sometimes brutally cold conditions experienced in Fort Nelson, where summer highs average around 22 C and winter months are characterized by temperatures as low as -20 C.

Soles wasn't sure the plants survived the first winter in the greenhouse until April this year, when they started to bloom and then produce fruit. He harvested his first bunch of bananas on Sept. 6 after they became so heavy they snapped right off the tree.

In all, Soles says there are about 180 bananas growing right now. The first bunch is hanging in his living room where he's waiting for them to ripen, a process that can take days even in factory conditions.