Alright, as I suspected the questions just keep popping up so I think it deserves it’s own thread.
So, according to puna these guys like a pretty balanced fertilizer he says 16-16-16 twice a year. I tend towards just using compost which does tend to be pretty balanced.
I’m thinking puna is probably right that this one isn’t really an eating pineapple but that’s okay, it’ll still be fun. Might be time to go get myself a pineapple at the store and start a proper one.
questions;
if I buy a fruit at the store and start the top it’s a clone so I don’t have to worry about gene drift correct?
if they are flowering in February do I need to hand pollinate? it’s gonna have to live inside at that time of year.
check out the growing food thread for puna’s advice.
but basically you remove the green top from the fruit, Puna says to twist it off like a bottle cap. Let it dry for a couple days, peel off a few layers of leaves at the bottom and plant it.
I have also heard of starting in a cup of water after removing, drying and cleaning the top.
I got one to start this way years ago but fell down on my maintenance and killed it.
I use 16-16-16 because it is more concentrated. My pineapple patch is pretty big and very spikey (I wear safety goggles when reaching into my pineapple patch). I take about 1/4 cup of fertilizer and hand place it around the base of the pineapple plant. If you broadcast the fertilizer over your pineapples the granuals will get caught in the base of the leaves and burn the plant.
Pineapples are bromiliads and get much of their sustenance from the air. Here in Hawaii they grow like weeds. One plant will make slips and suckers and in a few years you will have dozens growing where you planted just one.
AFAIK no pollenization is necessary to create fruit, so clones they are. Pineapple seeds are tiny little black things (about the size of a gnat) and can be found in the outer portion of the ripe fruit meat, where the little circular part of the fruit skin (formerly the flower) impinges into the fruit meat. A friend of mine once grew a pineapple from a seed he found while eating a pineapple just to see if he could do it. It took a couple of years, and he got a nice fruit from seed. Everyone else grows them from tops, or slips, or suckers.
Being clones, they are true (WYSIWYG). The drifting is saved for the dirt track racers (“Turn right to go left!”)
Some people like to start tops in a small glass of water. It’s pretty cool to do it that way. Tiny little root nubs form where the removed leaves used to attach to the trunk. I have found no advantage to starting tops in dirt or water. Being able to watch the roots form by water starting is fun though. Change the water often.
I just take my tops now and throw them back into the pineapple patch. If the grow great, if not they become mulch. Most grow.
Twisting the top off is neater. Just grab the fruit in one hand, the top with your other hand, and twist the fruit until they top detaches. It just leaves a small hole in the fruit, and just a tiny bit of fruit on the top. Let the top dry for a couple of days, then remove the bottom 10 leaves of so to expose about an inch of trunk. Then plant in potting soil. Or you can put the inch of exposed trunk into a shallow glass of water (enough water just to reach the bottom of the remaining leaves). Change the water every couple of days, and plant in potting soil when the roots form.
that is what i did wrong, i never peeled back the bottom leaves to form a trunk. i was told to just take the top and put in dirt. that was years ago just after leaving mililani and getting back to portland. now i know… yahoo.
Cool tips. I didn’t know about the ripping off leaves part. I just tried this a couple of days ago, but I just lopped the top off as I usually do and put it in a pot. I just assumed it worked the way it does with celery (i.e., just lop the bottom off and pot it). Well, if this one doesn’t make it I’ll just try it again with another one. We eat at least one or two a week so I always have plenty of opportunity.
Unfortunately I think it will just end up being a summer ornamental regardless. Living in New England with no southern windows puts a damper on tropical plants.
Once you prep a pineapple that way it will become SOP.
Kinda like one-handed mudbug eating. Once you get it, it is an aha moment. (Doug Lindley showed me one-handed mugbug eating 20 years ago… Bugs with one hand, Acadian pilsener with the other).
It’ll survive, might not fruit but it will survive.
On fruiting, perhaps puna can confirm or deny, or perhaps not. I have read that if you put a very ripe apple in the pot with the pineapple and close the whole thing up in a plastic bag for a few days the etheline(sp?) produced by the apple will trigger flowering.
I have an avacado tree that is now almost 5 years old in a pot. doing great. had to move it inside last summer cause it was getting burnt by the sun.
My sister lives in West Chicago (and works at Fermilab). She’s got one pineapple growing in a pot. She got it though the winter under a lamp. I think it’s more about staying warm and photoperiod than anything else.
Avocado seeds are not true. There’s a good chance the plant will not make fruit that is the same as the fruit the seed came from. But, they are fun to grow in a glass as a houseplant anyway.
When I find an avocado tree that I really like, I just remember where it is and go back to pick when it’s in season. Avocado, mango, guava, papaya, lilikoi (passion fruit) grow wild all over Puna and are free for the taking.
I have cloned avocado trees by air-layer. That works well.
Can’t really comment on the apple-flower trick. Never had to try it. I’m not much of an apple fan. Never lived where they grow (until now). There are some apple orchards here, up at about 6000ft. elevation on Mauna Kea. Those who have tried them say they are very tasty.
weird since we both fished sebastian, both lived in hawaii and west chicago is only a few miles up the road from me. half dozen or so patients and friends work at fermi-lab. therefore, i should be successfull at growing an pineacado.
