Canaries abound with the fruit of the land and of the sea 

Canary Wharf, in London, was so named for the tomato boats arriving to supply England and Europe with tomatoes in winter.

Backyard bathtub garden in late January, La Gomera. Three tomato plants, set as seedingings on New Year's Day, are now 70cm tall. Lettuce, beetroot, spinach all doing well. Strawberries and mint in pots. Picture: Damien Enright

How many bananas in a piña (a bunch, as it grows on the tree)? Somewhere down the column, I'll reveal the answer. Meanwhile, the heaviest piñas weigh from 80kg to 90kg and the record for the most bananas on a single stem was not in Costa Rica, not in Indonesia (where bananas originated), but in the Canary Islands. Readers who know the weight of a banana can make an educated guess.

Piñas of 80/90kg would require two men, or a donkey, to lift them. As I see banana farmers carrying piñas as big as a sack of potatoes on their shoulders up steep, stone steps from plantations four or five terraces below the road, I assume they can't be more than half the record weight.