Experimental Gardening: Growing a Pineapple

Saturdays are usually when I watch Gardener’s World with Monty Don while I’m cleaning the first floor of the house. Not surprising the Pandemic also impacted how they were able to film Gardeners World especially when we were in global lock down. One of the changes in the programming involved people sending in short videos of their gardens and gardening experiments which is how my attempt at growing a Pineapple came about. A gal, I’m guessing from somewhere in the UK, shared with Monty how she grew Pineapples. After watching this episode, I decided to give it a go myself.

Basically, what you do is buy a whole Pineapple and cut the top off. From there, you peel back some of the outer leaves and eat the rest of the pineapple. Next you get cardboard, I used foam core, and a glass jar or clear container of some kind, I used an old pickle jar. Once you have your container, you cut the foam core so that it extends beyond the edges of the opening of the jar, I cut it into a square. Next you cut a hole in the center of the foam core large enough so the cut end of the Pineapple can fit though it but small enough so the remaining leaves can hold it in place. Next you fill the container with water so that the raw end of the Pineapple top is submerged but the leaves are not. Then you place it in a sunny window and wait! It felt like I was waiting FOREVER but eventually roots began to grow. I started this experiment during the winter so by the time spring rolled around and the fear of frost had passed I decided I had enough roots to transplant my Pineapple into will drained soil (I used a combination of garden soil for veggies mixed with perlite which is excellent for drainage). I also added a bit of compost matter that I discovered was very appealing to my springer spaniels Molly and Daisy.

Unfortunately, I discovered this the hard way when I came out one afternoon and found both my pineapples, I had started a second one, unpotted and spread out across the patio floor! After much profanity, I was able to save one of them and repotted it, this time placing it well above my vicious beasties (who aren’t vicious I was just really pissed off at them). 

I thought all was lost but much to my surprise my Pineapple not only recovered from its untimely and unwarranted attack it is thriving! I’ve no idea if I will ever get an actual Pineapple from my fruit experiment but it’s just really cool that I could actually grow a Pineapple from the leafy part of the fruit! Experimental gardening really is like making art, you have this idea, you give it a go and see what happens, you make tweaks along the way, revise and then move forward again, all the while just enjoying the creative process. So there you go, now you too can grow your own Pineapple. Happy Gardening and thank you Monty Don!