First, this is a new thing to us! But this is something we are very excited to try! We had this comment on our How to Cut and Freeze Pineapples post HERE about how you can take the tops of your store-bought pineapples and grow your own pineapples from them. It kinda reminded me of when you were a kid and got an avocado seed or peach pit and was determined to plant and watch it grow in your own backyard. It just doesn’t work.
But I was curious as we love pineapples, they are often expensive and so it would be super sweet to do so. However, I immediately said to myself “we can’t as we live in a cooler climate for most of the year.” But I researched it anyway as I was really, really curious!
I found this site that tells you all about it called Tropical Permaculture and here’s an excerpt from their site about Growing Pineapples:
Not only is growing pineapples ridiculously easy. Growing pineapple plants is possible just about anywhere in the world!
That’s because the pineapple plant is one of the few tropical fruits that are really well suited to growing in pots, and that means you can grow pineapples indoors.
To read all of the instructions and information, just head to the Tropical Permaculture site HERE.
Well, the good news is it looks like any of us, no matter where we live, can grow our own! It appears to be super, super easy. It also seems like you can’t really mess-up, even if you don’t have a green thumb. The only downer here is that it does take about 2 years before you get your first fruit. But then once you get your first, you can start a good cycle of indoor plants of pineapples and have quite a crop!
Apparently, even though you won’t get pineapples for a couple of years, the plants are beautiful, you get the benefits of having a plant in your home and they are very easy and require very little work.
I can’t wait to get my next store-bought pineapple, I am so excited to get this going that I am tempted just to go get one no matter if it is on sale or not!
I was a little disappointed as I have been throwing the tops of my pineapples in my compost bin, even the most recent just being a couple of weeks ago! But, it is never too late to start!
We are going to give this little thrifty experiment a run, but we probably won’t have results to report for a couple of years 🙂 I am willing to have a pot of pineapples in each corner of my house! They are pretty and it can’t hurt! I also love that they require very little water, work, sun or shade…really not much!
Have you ever heard of this? Have you tried it?
Photo Credits: MaysFloralGarden.com, SodaHead.com, LoveToKnow.com
Claire
I live in VA and I have been growing pineapples for over 10 years. It does take about 2 years for a top to turn into a plant and to bear fruit. Once you eat a freshly cut, home grown pineapple, you will never eat a store bought one again! I would like to mention some things missing from your post. Once the fruit appears down the center of the leaves, it will take about 6 months to go from flower to fruit. When it is ripe enough to cut, it will be a beautiful golden yellow from top to bottom and you can actually smell the pineapple scent. I keep mine in the sunniest window in my house for the winter and leave them outside in the full sun in the summer. Don’t water the soil; pineapples are bromeliads and you should water the leaves; never down the center one once a flower starts. Once the mother plant has begun to fruit, shoots form on the side and you will eventually get more pineapples from them. You can separate them if you want, but I just let mine go until the plant is too big for the pot. I have had 5 fruits at once this way. Be sure to start out with a good size pot in order for the plant to be able to grow. I feed the pot every spring with an organic fertilizer. Hope I thought of everything. Good luck!