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!

Hope you enjoyed today's post and will try this! I have so much fun planting them! Probably too much!

See you later!

Trisha.

How to Cut a Pineapple

First, sit the pineapple on the counter to ripen fully. It must smell wonderful first and be golden colored or don't bother with it at all. You need to buy a good one. It must not have too much green, and it must be darker yellow at least. You need to be very particular about this. I have gone to the store before to buy pineapple and go home with out if they have a green batch or one that looks yucky sickly yellow. Don't waste your time if they don't have good fruit. It's worth it to wait.

 

Twist the top off and rinse your fruit very well:

This top part you can plant. I'll show you about that tomorrow.

Don't worry about the hole; you're not going to use that part anyways.

Lay it on it's side, and trim off the top and bottom:

turn it right side up, and slice off just the outside edge. You don't want to waste all that juicy fruit!

See the little brown pieces? Trim them off very carefully. They are edible, but hard to chew. The smaller darker pieces are just seeds. You can leave them.They're edible.

Next, put the top or bottom facing up, and see the white ring in the middle? cut an X all the way through the entire pineapple staying centered on that white ring.

1st one way:

Then the next:

This is what your left with:

Cut off the center part with the knife at an angle:

So you're left with pieces looking like this: (You can eat the center. It's very fibrous and chewy. Or juice it. I choose not to eat it, but it would make great juice if you have a juicer.)

Next, slice it length-wise:

Then cut them into smaller pieces cross-wise:

You should have something that looks like this:

MMMMMMM. Fruit salad size! You can stop here and eat it, or refrigerate it. It will only last a day or two. You could probably freeze it too for smoothies.

To dehydrate, each pineapple makes 1 dehydrator tray worth of fruit. Try not to overlap them, but they can touch one another.

MMMMMMM! Dehydrated pineapple is a treat in our house and tastes better than candy!

 

Hope you learned something from this! I love pineapple and enjoy cutting it up as much as I do eating it!

Trisha.

My Plants

Remember this picture?

It now looks like this: Fire crackers!

 My garden is a violent burst of color and texture. Cantaloupes are producing again.

 Even though many people probably think my garden needs help, it did this all on it's own, and I admire the many layers. It just takes care of it's self. I like the loose carefree feeling it has. And it still makes fruit.

 Silhouettes of asparagus: (I dread having to dig them up- they are so happy here.)

 Asparagus seed pods:

 The only unwelcome thing is the goat heads that got out of hand because I haven't been in the garden for a couple of months to weed: Instant ground cover that keeps the dog out!

 And my date palms are still growing! A few have 4 leaves already! Now if I can just remember to water them! Then they can get strong and healthy before winter...

I have to be at work early one more day, then be there regular times for the rest of the week! I get a 1 day weekend on Monday, Then work 4 days, then I'll have 3 whole days off! I am more excited about that then you can imagine! I have my whole life planned on those 3 days! I'll get to live again! By that time, I'll have 2 new servers completely trained, and hopefully have started training 2-3 more.

 

Work is sapping too much of my energy right now and it feels like I'm being run into the ground. The extra help will be truely a blessing!

 

See you later! Have a bright cheerful day! Imagine wild zinnias in the gardens all over the world! Because I think the world would be so beautiful if everyone had a zinnia growing somewhere on their land!

 

Trisha.

The Torn Apart Mess of the New Town House

The stairway and dining room behind it in daylight:

The kitchen mess in the living room: (My husband told me the cabinets were so greasy it was hard to hold them once you picked them up.)

The kitchen with mold along the wall where the sink was: (Guess every house we buy will have mold behind the sink huh? We'll have to pull the drywall out)

As my husband tore apart the kitchen, in the corner cupboard where you loose things, my husband found a metal garlic press among other randoms. It's cheapy and old, but of better quality then my expensive soft plastic handled one that "cleans itself". So I think I'll trade mine for the metal one that doesn't bend and act like it'll snap in pieces over one garlic clove.

You might also notice we had most of the carpet removed. The hideous brown splotchy mold spore brand new carpet is now mostly gone. (YAY!!!!)

AND YES. THAT CARPET WAS BRAND NEW. THEY INSTALLED IT HOPING IT WOULD SELL THE PLACE....... bad taste I say.

 

I'll update more on the state of the town home when I get more pictures.

Have a Happy Happy Day!

Trisha.

Introducing Our New Town House

So what have we been up to??????

We bought ourselves a two story town house.

The kitchen is so large you can get lost in there. It leaves a lot to desire.

Especially if you think about rolling out your cookies right here:

And yum. Don't you want to pull a dish out of here and eat??

This stove is the cherry on the top. I thought everyone had replaced all these... We now own a peice of the past. And it's yellowish. Emphasis on the ish part.

And do you have any idea what to put in these drawers? They are only about 4 inches wide, and don't even come close to opening half the way because of the stove.

Or the cupboard right next to them? The space to fill from that small hole goes the entire space next to the drawers to the stove. A vastly huge space to loose your favorite kitchen item you'd never reach for the life you lived there. But it has to first fit through the hole..... which only small items can go in... which will only get lost........ I don't understand the reasoning behind this one corner.

The other side had the exact same set up, except instead of drawers, it had a larger door which opened to free standing shelves that opened up to the under the sink cabinet...And oh my goodness! If you moved your arm the wrong way, you'd knock something onto your dish rack or garbage if you keep it under there..... and then you'd have to open the under the sink cabinet door to find it ....

 

I think a man thought this kitchen up. 

One who doesn't cook. 

BECAUSE I WOULD EAT OUT EVERY NIGHT IF I LIVED WITH THIS KITCHEN.

The only nice thing? The sink was nice and clean.

The down stairs bathroom. Notice the chipped cupboards that don't close because they hit each other and dried pee on the toilet base? Yum. Are you jealous yet?

The stairs and looking into the living room. The front door is behind the stairs. This is a nice big space.

Looking from in front of the door towards the kitchen/bathroom door ways. (Yup! The bathroom has more space than the kitchen!) The dining room is now behind the stairs. Again a nice size.

The upstairs bathroom. Notice some of the damaged black streaks all over the mirror?

The sink is clean!!!!!!

The shower is so  old, it has a matte finish and it don't shine no more. It's also stained and yucky looking. Reminds me of when you stay in a hotel, the shower looks dirty, you stand in it, turn the water on, and the drain doesn't work so you gotta stand in a puddle that keeps rising almost to your knees until your done with the shower because first you gotta wait for the water to heat up and that don't drain either...    I JUST HOPE THIS DRAIN WORKS!!!!! Better yet, I'll tear it out

Can you believe they redid the flooring in here? Yup! With peel and stick linoleum squares from the dollar store. The picture makes the cabinets look nice! (they weren't The insides were shot! and the drawer may or may not close if you open it)

I'm not sure what this picture was, but I guess you can see the weird angle they built the medicine cabinets (both bathrooms) into the wall. The door is closed. The camera didn't pick up all the built up dirt they attempted to paint over.

Master bedroom: Double closets,

Double windows. A spacious delight.

Extra room's walk in closet

From extra room looking towards bath and master.

From extra bedroom doorway looking towards master. Linen closet door is open, and right after that is the little hallway that leads to the stairs. The extra bedroom is right over the living room.

And would you have guessed in a million years that these are the new cabinets for the town house kitchen in my family room? The yucky cabinets are out!!!!!!

So this has been an update for you about what has been going on in my life lately.

I'll try post more often.

Trisha.