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Here is the bloom on the latest of my pineapples to come into flower. Note the white area on the leaves immediately below the pineapple. This is very different from the bright red hue that usually comes. Also, the stem looks much thicker & sturdier than usual, and the flower itself seems more compact.
Jeremy, I just saw this update -- how neat! What happened with this pineapple? Did it turn out to be "ordinary" or did it continue to grow into something unusual?
I'm about to find out tonight! I just noticed today that, after the fruit sat on the plant all winter in a semi-dormant state and survived several nights below freezing with no damage, it is now fully golden yellow and ready to eat.
This fruit remained smaller than the other pineapple fruit I've grown. This one might be the fruit of an ornamental miniature pineapple that a friend gave me after she had used it for decoration for her dinner table. The fruit was still fairly green to keep it small and hard for decorative purposes. I cut the top off and planted it, and this slightly larger, fully ripe pineapple may be the result.
I'll get a photo today before harvesting it.
My first pineapple fruit was eaten by some creature (maybe a big rat, I don't seem to have raccoons or possums here). The pineapple thief took some big bites out of the fruit on a couple of nights, then the pineapple was totally dragged away. I never found the bromeliad top off the pineapple, which was my only real concern to plant that top and keep the lineage going.
The next pineapple fruit also overwintered this year. It got fully ripe as soon as the warm temperatures returned. I did get to eat it, and as everyone has said that grows their own pineapples, it was the most sweet and delicious pineapple I've ever had! Very light flavor with not more than a slight touch of acidity. Incredible!
I'll enjoy the current pineapple in the photo tonight and post the results of the taste test.
Thanks greatly for bringing this photo back to the surface. My mind is so vacuous, I had forgotten that this pineapple had "blushed" white instead of red prior to flowering.
Nuts to your pineapple thief! I've had marauding mice nipping the tender tops off my pepper seedlings (not just the leaves, the whole top so that the seedling is done for). grrrrrrrrr.
This is something I haven't quite convinced myself to try, although from our trip to HI I know that home-grown pineapples are worthwhile. Here, I'd have to have them inside over the winter... and pineapple plants are not small. :-)
I had one growing in my back yard 2 years ago. Just as it was almost ripe, something ate it. It looked like an apple, eaten all around. I now have two in the west facing flowerbed in front of my house., As soon as I see fruit, I am going to place some chicken wire around it, Maybe I'll get to taste it this time. (Port Saint Lucie, Fl.)
Sorry about your pineapple varmint thief, jowben1! I certainly know the frustration of waiting with anticipation for the pineapple fruit to get fully ripe, only to have the fruit gnawed off by a pineapple craving critter. The chicken wire is a great idea! I will try that the next time I get a pineapple to make a fruit. All of my pineapples were knocked back severely by colder than usual winter temperatures last year (20s F for sustained hours on several nights). Most of them survived without any special frost and freeze protection, but the cold weather did seem to set them back and created a recovery period of several months so I didn't get any fruit from them this summer.
critter-Jill: In Maryland, you could probably grow pineapple successfully outdoors by building a temporary cold frame with plastic or glass top for the winter months and tossing in several long strings of twinkle lights around and on top of the pineapple bromeliad plants. I've found pineapple plants to be more cold hardy than most sources indicate.
Hmm... that's an interesting thought! But I'm not sure it'll happen any time soon... right now, my ambition for the "tropical" bed by the deck next year is to actually get my bananas and amaryllises planted out into it! LOL
But if Joyanna ends up loving pineapple, it's a pretty sure bet that her daddy will help build a cold frame so she can grow one. ;-)
Thanks for the article. I too can't bear the thought of tossing the crown so in the ground it goes. Love your approach to gardening. Uncomplicated. Nothing better than poking something in the ground and watching it grow.
Critter. I had to laugh. Didn't you just have an article about seed snatchin' ? Maybe karma is visiting your peppers!
Thanks for the post, plantparent! Yep, I am the laid back lax kind of gardener. Over the past few years, I've come up with the lazy man's approach to organic soil building:
1. Have a large oak tree threatening the homestead taken down.
2. Insist that the tree surgeons leave the felled trunks and branches (thereby saving about half the price for the tree removal and also avoiding having careless clouts drag large branches through my plantings).
3. Ignore the rotting branches and trunks for about 5 years.
4. Eureka! Suddenly there is rich black woodsy humus and lots of earthworms where the oak trunks and branches have been decaying!
5. And, as an added bonus, if the larger portions of the stump hold up for several years, you can use them for an au naturale bromeliad planting (as per photo, below, of my current bromeliad garden).
We have HUGE oaks on the property. We rake the leaves into the lane in the fall, driving over them through the next couple seasons. This summer I went to the lane and scooped tons of great soil and mulched leaves to pot up coconuts. Much more fun than going to HD and lift heavy bags of soil. We are also blessed with winds that blow all kinds ofbranches off the oaks. Those that don't end up in the smoker (yum-yum) are used as planters for ferns and such. I really like the bromilead garden. The puppy is cute too! I want one (stump garden) but the oaks are protected so untill they get some disease we can't go chopping on them. Not that I would.
Just a note. I went on my walk-a-bout this AM and noticed some critter got my single green tomatoe. KARMA????
Congrats on becoming a pineapple farmer, jowben1! Glad to know the chicken wire kept out the varmints. I think fresh pineapple may be so sweet because the sugars in the fruit don't have a chance to turn to acid?? Just a guess on what the chemical explanation might be.
