Welcome to my page on pineapples!

    I started growing pineapples several years ago. I never actually thought that I would ever actually get any fruit from one, I just thought it would be cool to have one. Now, after three years, I have three large plants, one medium plant, and one second-generation plant. I have also given away about four or five plants. They are very easy to grow.

    When you buy a pineapple from the store, cut the green top off, and carefully trim off ALL of the fruit. Then peel off about 1/2 inch of the green leaves on the bottom. You can let the top dry for a few days, or, like I do, put it in a coffee mug of water. I use a coffee mug because the leaves of the pineapple (I guess that is the correct term) will suspend it with the bottom of the plant about halfway into the mug. Keep the mug filled with water, and the pineapple should start rooting. After the plant has a good mass of roots, I plant them. You can start them in a small pot, or you can start them in a pot that will be large enough for them to grow to full sized in (about 18 inches across and the same deep).

    For a long time I did not water my first plant every week, and it grew rather slowly. Then I started watering them every week, and in very hot weather, twice a week. now they are all growing very well.

    I think I have two different types of pineapples, as three of the plants look the same, but one has very different colored leaves.

    Since pineapples take in most of their nutrients during warm weather through their leaves, I also mist them once every two weeks with a light formulae of miracle grow. When the weather is cooler, the plants get more of their nutrients through their roots, so it is important fertalize them with a normal solution of plant food once a month or so.

    It will take the plants two to three years to reach maturity, and then they will start producing fruit. It takes the fruit between four to eight months to reach maturity, depending on the weather. I currently live in southern California, and although it doesn't get really cold during the winter, it does cool down enough for the plants to grow much slower.

    If you have a pineapple plant that is several years old that has not produced fruit, I have heard that you can take a ripe apple, stick it into the center of the plant (gently as to not break the leafs), and enclose the entire plant in a black garbage bag for several days, and it should produce fruit.



I have quite a few people email me with comments (thanks!) so I have decided to try something. If you have pictures of your pineapple plants and/or fruit and you want to share them, email them to me and I will put them on this page so everyone can see them. Include any other info you want me to include (for example, your name and where you live). My email address is wierdling @ gmail.com (make sure to remove the spaces, had to do that to defeat email harvesters).
Also, feel free to link to this page on your page if you want (this is the url for this page: link ).

Frank,from Ontario Canada sent in these pics.



Curt, from Nort East Alabama sent in these pics.



Susan, from West Virginia sent in this pic.


Thanks all!

    The following pictures are from my first plant. It is a bit of a runt due to a very hard life haha. The pineapple it finally produced was about 1/3rd the size you can find in a store, but it still had a very sweet fruit, and, in my opinion, it tasted much better than any store bought pineapple. Unfortunately, I lost the pictures of the actual fruit after we picked it due to a hard drive crash.

Whoo whoo a real pineapple!

This is the fruit at about 3 months

Growing nicely

This is the plant after we picked the fruit. Notice the new leaves growing out of the side of the plant. This has happened to all of my plants that have produced fruit.

The plant looks a bit more scraggly, but is recovering nicely

The following pictures are from my second plant.

This is the plant at about two years, and the fruit at about two months.

Close up of the fruit.

Another close up of the fruit. Notice the flowers are purple in color. They did not have an odor that I could detect.

     

This is the fruit at about four - five months.

Another close up.

In this picture, you can see the new sprout coming out of the side of the plant.

These are from my third big plant. Although it looks like there are two plants here, they all came from the same plant. Acutally, the first plant to produce fruit, the first one I have on this page, came from this group as well (it was the original, and the other two plants sprouted off to the side of it). When I was moving, the plant that had fruit blew out of the pot, and I replanted it into it's own pot. This plant also has a new sprout growing at the bottom, so there is sort of three plants in this pot.

A nice overview of the plants. It is very easy to see the purple flowers in this picture on the fruit. The fruit is about two months old.

A close up of the fruit.

Another close up.

A nice full view of the plant.

The fruit at about four - five months.

This is the plant that is different than the rest. It's leaves are a different color, with a pale pink color stripe down the middle. I wonder what kind of fruit it will produce. It is about a year old.

This is my second generation plant. It came from the fruit off of the first plant I grew. It is nice and green, and doing a bit better than the store bought plants do. It is about two months old.

These are some pictures of some ripe pineapples.

This is a picture of my baby herb garden. I just thought I would throw it in for variety hehe.

Here is a picture of my bananna tree just starting out. I now have four of them (all from the first one).
Update: I now only have one. They don't like Washington much. I have the one remaining plant in my office where it stays nice and warm.

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