Hopelessness On Libby: How to Plant a Pineapple Plant

First take your pineapple and evaluate it. Pay no attention to those who tell you it will grow no matter what. It won't if it's too yellow, or if most of the leaves are looking brown and rotten, IT WON'T.

Also, make sure the center leaves are green. These are the most important ones.

Starting at the bottom,:

Start pulling leaves off in a circular pattern. You have to work one edge up, and peel/tear the rest of each leaf off. It can be difficult, but at this point, just get the leaves off.

You will start seeing roots if it's a really good pineapple. Keep peeling leaves off:

Keep peeling and peeling until you're about 1 inch up from where the roots start appearing. Don't try to leave/save the leaves. They'll die anyways and mold the plant to death:

See the roots? This pineapple is a very good one. Sometimes you have way less. You will have better luck getting it established if you have at least 1 root. Like I said, this one is a very good one.

Plant the pineapple to about where my thumb is so the entire bottom is in potting soil, and make sure you press VERY firmly on the soil around it. Keep the soil wet for about 1-2 months until you see it's firmly in place. Don't touch it before then. If it gets knocked out of the soil, just push it back in or add more soil. If it gets moldy, throw it out. It won't grow. If it turns all yellow or brown, and dies, it didn't take. Try again. About 1 in every 4 won't make it. Don't cry if this happens to you.

Here you can see an established one. the bottom-most leaves will die. leave them there until about 3 months you might be able to pull them out, or just trim them if the tips are brown if you don't want to see them. They won't kill the plant to leave them. If you pull them, MAKE SURE THE PLANT IS ESTABLISHED AND THE ROOTS WILL HOLD! or else hold the plant firmly still with one hand and pull the dead leaves gently with the other. (can you tell I'm OCD?) If they don't come easily, leave them or trim them.

Here is an example of a pineapple plant where I trimmed all the brown tips off. Leave a little brown or you'll kill the leaf further. You can also see in the picture that the center leaves have grown out and are longer. This means it's rooted and will survive. All new leaves come from the exact center at the top. I had a plant that the center leaves died but the rest of the plant looked healthy and when I pulled the dead leaves out, (They just fell out) saw little tiny fresh new leaves filling in too take their place! It survived!

This morning I had to restrain myself from planting this new one because I have enough. (Don't you agree?) And I'm moving. Yup! We got an offer on the house! We just have to accept it!

Just imagine. Every last one of the pineapples I planted here looked just like this new fresh one either bigger or smaller, some with 1 root, some with a huge mass like this new one. And most turned into real plants (some died). I haven't gotten fruit from them yet, but I guess after 2 years, you put an apple in the middle, cover the entire plant, and let the apple rot. I haven't the heart to waste an apple! The 2 bottom plants are going on 3 years. But after you get a fruit, twist off the top, and restart! The fruited plant won't fruit again, so dump it and plant it's baby!

If you live in Phoenix, they do best outside under the shaded patio on the south side, only recieving about 2 hours sunlight a day total with morning and evening sun combined. The filtered shade/light is all they want to keep them happy! Just remember to water them!

I must be weird to like the look of Bermuda grass "hands" waving at the sun in the morning even though they're in my garden. I guess I REALLY enjoyed them this morning because it won't be my garden grass is growing in soon!

I don't get it how those "hands" "waving" make me happy. Maybe they're waving bye to me with good riddance. (Imagine me trying to kill them all these years and they're still here!)

Remember the goat head ground cover picture yesterday? I pulled them. Very roughly. I killed some watermelon vines. Oh well. They'll freeze in the next month or so anyways. Maybe since I started showing interest in my garden we got an offer? I should have done that sooner!

I'm really going to miss my wild zinnias!

And my wild marigolds!

But I will take all my cantaloupes! I just picked this one today! We have 1 month to move out and that's all it will take for them all to ripen! Into the freezer for smoothies they'll go! The last of garden fresh fruit for a while!