How to Grow Pineapples

Step 7: Harvest

Let your pineapples get ripe on the plant. They taste better that way, rather than the store bought pineapples that get ripe on the shelves. When the outside skin of the pineapple starts changing from brown to yellow, go outside with a saw and cut through the stalk supporting the pineapple. In this process of waiting for the opportune moment to pick your pineapple, be careful of the neighborhood squirrels. They also enjoy nice ripe pineapples, so if you don't beat them too it, you may go outside one morning and find your pineapple half devoured.

Take the pineapple inside and enjoy eating your home grown fruit. Enjoy it, and save the top so when you're finished you can make your pineapple plants multiply...

Comments

[Bruce Voss]

I live in a gated comuniity in southwest florida, we have an enclosed lani 24 by 40ft. (sreened in patio )I put in a planting bed 2' wide and around the perimitor.We dont have space for a trditional garden. The produce ladies at our Publics supper market that cut-up and make fruit cups gave me a dosen tops to get me started with planting my pineapple?flower bed. each week I plant a new start.If things go as planed I'll plant around 60 tops .I cant think of a hedge that could be more satisfying.

[mrmerino]

Wow, neat! Is Arizona a nice place to grow those? I love the smell.

[The nerdling]

fresh pinapples look so good
are they better thann the baught ones?

[sokamiwohali]

sorry to be sarcastic but...
                                           

                                              |Store Bought Pineapple|
                                            /
                                           /
                                _VS._/
                               /
                              /
|Fresh Pineapple/


The healt benefits are clear. the only matter of concern really is time over convenience...Can you wait a year to eat the fruit of your labor (pardon the pun)?Would you rather eat a fruit that YOU grew thet YOU know what its been around? i would love to try this but i do not think my climate nor geo-location would be suitable...animals would eat my fruit and i think it might be a little too dry.

[tjesse]

Eat the squirrels.

[The nerdling]

heheheheheheh

[lil jon168]

lol now i can gaurd somthing fom squirrels besides my pecan tree

[baba87]

You can take metal netting (chicken wire) material and make like a cage thingy to go over the plant.

[pechka]

I've found that when ripening a pineapple, it helps to take off the crown of leaves and turn it upside-down.   This way it equalizes the sweetness; otherwise you have the sweet bottom and the tart top.  I think that the best way to tell a ripe pineapple is to smell it.

Great instructable, thank you!

[logman234]

My parents used to live in florida and did the same thin. But they live in wisconsin now and in the winter there is not enough natural light to keep it alive. Same thing with my orange tree. So your going to need some artificial light. I grow my orange tree in the basement and used cfl lightbulbs for about 10-12 hours a day that seems to work very good.

[monkeywidget]

Readers living in colder climates could benefit from one of the "how to build a greenhouse" instructables. That pineapple is a bit more than "half" eaten! Bad squirrels.

[red_metallic]

I so wish I lived where it was warm enough to do this. I love pineapple and would plant my entire yard with them. Great Instructable!

[Miss Calico]

You can try in a pot that you keep indoors. I agree with the steps here. We just threw them in the yard in southern Florida and they grew. My parent have two acres, my Dad is a plantaholic, and they(pineapples) are in the grove of avocados, along the rock walls. Waste not, want not. Plus if you can plant them outdoors, they are a great deterrent to people walking around them. The leaves have spikes and can be mean.

[digrat]

At the Dole pineapple plantation in Hawaii, they said that pineapples do not ripen after you pick them. Have you found that if you pick a "green" pineapple that it will ripen off the plant?

[skvalles]

that is false pine ripen after you pick them. take a pineapple from the store and set it on your counter for a week i bet that it will rot.

[hammertong]

I find green pineapples in the store all the time, if they didn't ripen off the plant, they'd be too hard to eat.

[thepelton]

Commercial tomatoes are often picked green, and subjected to Carbon Dioxide to hasten ripening.

[funkhouserb]

I believe the gas is ethylene not Carbon Dioxide. It is the same gas used to ripen green tomatoes. Bananas produce ethylene in great quantities.

[thepelton]

OK, I'll take your word for it. I never took chemistry. I just know they would pick them green and gas them to get the ripe color and feel.

[thepelton]

Maybe they could just stick them in a box with some bananas.

[funkhouserb]

As a matter of fact, if you have unripe fruit such as tomatoes, pears, avocado... whatever... you can place the fruit in a brown paper bag along with a banana or two in order to hasten the ripening process. Some supermarkets are starting to move flowers and fruits away from the banana section. The bananas in my supermarket are now placed near the potatoes and onions which are not affected by the ethylene gas.

[exoticman]

My pineapple is just now beginning to turn yellow a little, so harvest time is still awhile yet. I DO have 4 shoots below it. Should I remove and replant them or leave them on?

[Brian-Anthony]

I am guessing your pineapple took about 15-18 months before it bore fruit. The 4 shoots you spoke about, if they are right under the fruit re-planting them will cut that time to about 12 months, but you must let them get to a decent size or you could just leave them until you harvest the fruit. Note that leaving them until you harvest may result in a fruit of a smaller size, the bright side being 4 superior plants for the next crop. BAD

[woofboy111]

This is actually the first year that I have had multiple pups coming up from the pineapple plant after the fruit, so I had the same question as you. In the past, my pineapple plants would fruit, then grow a new pup from the base of the plant which would eventually overtake the old growth and provide the next fruit.

I did some research for multiple pups and this is what I found:
-If the pup comes from the base of the plant, it's called a Ratoon. This is what I've always gotten from the plants, which provides successive fruit for the next season.
-If the pups are up higher on the plant, just below or next to the fruit, they are called Slips. Once the fruit is harvested, these can be removed and replanted in the same method used to plant pineapple fruit tops. I'm not sure what happens if they are left on the plant, or exactly how to remove them, but once my fruit is ready this season, I'll do some experimenting and update the Instructable.

I found lots of good pineapple information here.

[ausisit]

We gave our half dozen pineapples mostly water and about once every 3 months or so gave them standard nutrients or worm tea from our worms. This was just basically an all round fertiliser plus added potassium and trace elements.

If you check out at the following link the funny video we did on harvesting pineapples you can see what happens when technology meets nature hence the name when pineaplples attack. If you got any questions we are happy to help, as you can see there at our blog.

We grew these Pineapples in Queensland Australia in a mix of vermicast which is worm compost, sponge rox and general compost made from scraps and our vege gardens prunnings. We ended up with 3 or 4 ratoons on each ad a couple of slips which we take off half and replant them with a 98% success rate. Only problem we had was the damn rats ate one Pine partly.

[dionysus2008]

ahh now that some good pineapple

[robyne wilcox]

Thanks for the photos with the step-by-step instructions. We planted a pineapple top a couple months ago and it's already taken root. Having never seen a pineapple plant before, it was great to see what we're in store for! You rock!

[mommalaher]

wow!! i thought pineapples grew in a tree! i use to live in birmingham al, i bet a pineapple plant would do well there! maybe it would have to be covered in case of a freeze and plenty of mulch around the plant base to keep it from freezing? on the other hand i live in seattle washington now and would not even attempt to grow a pineapple in the ground here. it is june 5th and it is 60 degrees right now. i am dreaming of a hot location right now. it ain't natural to be cold in june if your from the south!! thanks for this instructable it was very informative.

[islandjuice]

You sound like that guy from The Bucket List, his wife thought mayo came from a plant LOL

[smistry007]

couple of other questions - does it need to be cross polinated or does the fruit just develop? - once you harvest the fruit, will the plant make another fruit subsequently the following year or does the plant die? excellent write up btw!

[zawmintu]

Yea, i was wondering about the pollination factor in the pinapple... would it be beneficial to plant two or more of the pineapples so that the can be cross pollinated for the fruiting process to occur?

[mpgs324]

I have several questions. (Some may have already been answered) 1.Can a wire net or cage of some type be placed around the fruit as it is growing in order to protect it from squirrels? Waiting a whole year for a pineapple and having it destroyed by a squirrel could be devastating. 2. Is plant food a no no? 3. Though I live in B'ham, AL we still can get some cold nights in the winter so I'd be planting in a pot. What size pot should I get? Great Instructable and pics.

[kimland]

I live in Portland, Oregon, and I'm wondering if it gets warm enough here for this great experiment. Can you share where you are located?

[jeff-o]

Looks like a sugar-fueled feeding frenzy!