Pineapples

A ripe white pineapple ready for eating
plus 2 slips for planting. 

When I think "Hawaii", one of the many images that comes to mind is pineapples. So of course, I've just gotta grow my own pineapples!

We owned our property for a couple of years before moving here. I had  a friend keep an eye on the place for me. So whenever she had a pineapple top, she brought it along and planted it somewhere around the house. By the time we made our move, there were pineapples ready for eating. What a wonderful surprise.

These pineapples were my introduction to homegrown pineapple. When we harvested them and cut the open they seemed awfully pale in color but had the most incredible aroma and sweet tasty flesh. I was in love! I later found out that these were a white pineapple, far better than the golden ones. I'm hooked. I only grow the white ones now.

Growing pineapples is easy at my farm. They can be planted at anytime. They only require watering during a bad drought. Fertilizer makes them sweeter and really big. They grow well in rocky, rather poor soil. They do better in full sun but will also produce a small fruit in shady spots.

Two struggling plants in a cold, arid area are producing
pineapples! Amazing. These are at a friend's house and
the pineapples are actually sweet and juicy. 

To start them I use tops, suckers, and slips. For commercial farming it makes  a difference which you use, but for home production it really doesn't matter. If the keiki (baby) is good sized, I just stick it right into the ground. If it is small, I usually start it in a pot so that I can keep an eye on it and give it some pampering. But as the years go by, I find that I have an abundance of hefty keikis, so the little ones can be given away for someone else to fuss over. Some people start their keikis in a glass of water, waiting until roots are showing before planting them into soil. I don't bother. They do just fine with direct planting.

I wait to harvest the pineapple until it is yellowish and aromatic. Why pick it green? Mo better ripe! I'll let the plant continue to grow a new sucker, which I remove to replant. You could leave the plant in place and allow it to reproduce over and over again, but it gets sprawly and looks bad. Since I don't need to get maximum production, I like to restart the plants, keeping things nicer looking and easier to care for. 

The only problem I have had growing pineapples is pigs. They love them and can smell a ripe pineapple from quite a distance. Let a pig near the pineapples and they will get ruined in one night. 

variegated pineapple in bloom

There is a variegated pineapple grown here as an ornamental. It is not edible-- very fibrous. The plants is very pretty, but oh so full of sharp serrations on the leaves. It would be great to plant along a property line to keep people out. 2-3 rows deep and nobody is going to try walking through them. I like the variegated pineapple :
1- It grows very well in the shade. It gets nicely colored in the shade and does not need extra watering. Very pretty. (The sun tends to wash out the color.) 
2- Its flower stalk makes a beautiful flower arrangement addition. 
3- It doesn't require any maintenance to look pretty. No-work landscaping.