Growing your own pineapple

A couple years ago, I started a pineapple in the spring, but I forgot it outside when we had our first freeze, so it was killed. I'm a stubborn one though, and I'm not going to let one little mistake stop me from trying again. So, a few months ago, I twisted the top off a store-bought pineapple and put it in a large mug with water. I placed it in my kitchen window, and there it sat . . . and sat . . . and sat . . . until I started to think that it was just going to rot. I waited for roots to grow, but day after day, there were no roots. I couldn't remember how long it took last time, but I figured there wasn't any harm in just letting it continue to sit. The lower leaves even got kind of icky, and I easily pulled them off.

Just when I was about to give up on it, I lifted it out of the water one day and found roots! Once it has roots, you can supposedly put it in a pot with potting mix, but being the busy person that I am, I haven't had time, so it continued to sit in the water. I worried that it might still rot, but it didn't. The roots just continued to grow longer.

So, yesterday I finally found a few minutes to run out to the shed to get potting mix and a pot. Isn't it funny how you think that you don't have time for something, then when you finally do it, you wonder what took you so long to get around to it? Well, that's how it was with my new pineapple. It took about 10 or 15 minutes to actually get it done.

So, now it's sitting on my south-facing deck. And I noticed new leaves growing in the middle, so I guess all those months of sitting in the water didn't hurt it. I will remember to bring it into the house before our first freeze this fall. I put it in a fairly large pot because from what I've read, it will get to be 2-3 feet in diameter and height before it starts to make little pineapples, which will take a few years. If you've ever had fresh pineapple though, you know it's worth the wait.