A record heat wave has led to bananas growing outdoors in Seoul and pumpkins baking on the vine on Jeju Island.
Photos taken Wednesday at Chungsoo Weekend Farm in Nowon, northeastern Seoul, by News 1 show a banana tree taller than an average adult with three bunches of bananas growing beneath its leaves. At the time the photos were taken, the temperature was 35.8 degrees Celsius with 73 percent humidity.
This is the second consecutive year bananas, a tropical fruit typically grown in Southeast Asia or the South Pacific, have grown at the outdoor farm.
Native to hot and humid regions, bananas are typically cultivated in greenhouses in South Korea, which has a continental climate with four distinct seasons. But as extreme heat persists, some are now growing in the open air — even in the capital city, which is farther north than most other regions.
On Jeju Island, where temperatures tend to be higher than in northern regions, crops appear to be baking in the fields.
The owner of Jeju’s Bollesom Farm, which grows pumpkins, uploaded a video titled “(Pumpkins) are cooked at the farm as it was too hot,” on July 10. In the video, the inside of a pumkin appears slightly cooked.
The farm owner said about 30 percent of the pumpkins were affected. “This kind of damage has happened before,” the owner told The Hankyoreh. “But it’s the first time it reached 30 percent.”
shinjh@heraldcorp.com
