Ramblings and webcomics from LeEMS
Did I mention my obsessive brainstorming for new research zines; have I said that I was working on a zine for pineapples? Well, beyond finding recipes for wine and vinegar, I have also found that pineapple plants, their leaves specifically, are used to make cloth. In the Phillipines, where most Piña cloth is currently made, it has been used to make the traditional Barong tagalog as well as embroidered kerchiefs and shawls (Wikipedia). The Piña cloth produced in the Phillipines is made via a time consuming manual process. It is often woven with silk to give it a nicer drape. Whether with silk or without, it is an oddly translucent and beautiful cloth.
Would it surprise you to learn that I am also amassing material to make a zine about pineapples? No, well, you know me so well.
When I first figured out that the huge, sharp, spiky plants that came with our house were pineapple, I went looking online for instructions and tips for growing and harvesting the plants. While I found some really helpful information, like suggestions to move the plants into the sun for better fruit production, I also found a chorus of recommendations that have proved untrue for my situation.
What is my situation? I live on the west coast of central Florida in planting zone 9. The north side of my house backs up on a lake, so there may be a little bit of a micro-climate happening that can protect the plants in my back yard from minor freezes. I have my pineapple plants in raised planting beds established by the previous owners of the house. I think the beds have a weed blocker on the bottom which means whatever I plant in there only has 8-12 inches of depth for root growth. The beds are filled with a variety of sand, enriched soil, compost and decomposing leaf mulch.
While pineapples thrive in sun and the ones that came with the house burst into action when I first moved them, I no longer think that they need full sun here in central Florida in order to be healthy and fruit on schedule. I now have a few at one end of a bed that gets pretty consistent shade all afternoon, and some of them have fruited in their first year! I exclaim because up until this year all of my pants regularly took two years to fruit. Add to this, the tendency for the developing fruit to sunburn in the heat of summer if tilted to one side, and I think at least a little shade might be beneficial.
Admittedly, I have my pineapples planted in a raised bed with a healthy mix of soil and compost. However, I did not pH test, nor do I bother amending the soil on a regular basis. The most I do is spread the oak leaves I sweep up from the side of yard as mulch to help keep the weeds at bay. Pineapples are not picky; they are not fussy. They get some of their water from the air and do not wholly depend on their shallow root system.
I found several sites that confidently proclaim that pineapples don’t ripen after harvest. Along with this comes the information that color is no indicator of ripeness. Well this is all just hooey, in my opinion.
For one, I harvest my fruits before they are completely ripe and I judge ripeness on color and smell. When harvesting I cut down low on the stem and then leave the stem attached. I’ve found a fair few sites that mention this method, but the idea is that there are nutrients in the stem that the fruit continues to feed on, helping it ripen. Yes, you can eat a pineapple that is not completely yellow*, but the color in a pineapple does in fact change as the fruit ripens. (*I am speaking from experience with one type of pineapple)
I think of it like a banana, you can eat the green-ish ones but the ripest fruits are yellow. Speaking of bananas, I’ve run into instructionals on forcing a pineapple plant to fruit by using the ethylene emitting powers of a banana and wrapping the plant in plastic. I can’t comment on whether this works since I’ve never felt compelled to try. Yes, a pineapple plant can take two years from planting before it fruits. However, it doesn’t really take very long before you have a small crop where there are some plants fruiting every year, so I found it easy to be patient.
This myth is simply that humans can determine the best time to plant. Some suggestions I find say it is Jan-Dec, another says early fall because the continued rain and warmth will set them well. The best way to tell when it is a good time to plant is to have a plant already. My pineapples tell me when they are ready to reproduce. When the pineapples in my yard start to fruit they also start sending up little pups from within the leaves of the plant, sometimes on the stalks underneath the pineapples (which may be called slips, I think). If you don’t plant the slips when you harvest the pineapple, they are wasted since their connection to the mother plant isn’t all that strong. And if you don’t separate the pups from the mother the growth of the new plant will be stunted. So, all in all, the best time to plant is when the plant is reproducing. Often this coincides with harvest time where I live, which is around mid to late summer.
Without disparaging the multitudinous other instructionals out there, I wanted to give you my own info session on cutting up a pineapple. After a few years of growing them, and increasing my yield each year, I feel like I have learned things that I was never able to find out online.
Now, your pineapple is ready to eat. If you want to freeze it, I suggest positioning your cut pieces on a parchment lined baking sheet. Set the whole baking sheet in the freezer until the fruit is frozen and then you can tip all the frozen fruit pieces in a bag.
If you are preparing and saving the top for planting, set the prepared top in a vase (without water) or somewhere it can dry out a little longer. After a few days stick it in the ground and water well for a week. This is all I’ve ever needed to do to keep multiplying the amount of plants I have.
It should be of no surprise that I am once again talking about pineapples. I remember our first attempts at yarding after buying the house. I made a hesitant identification of some spiny, succulent like, grasses planted against the house. Based on a theory that they were pineapples, we moved them. It may have been one of the hardest things we ever did with plant materials. Then they fruited! Now, it seems like pineapples are one of the sure bets in my yard.
So this year, I bring you the seven stages of pineapple. The fruit, that is. The stages of plant would be a whole different thing that, I guess, I should probably get around to documenting as well.
aka this plant is gonna fruit this year. Usually stage one happens around March to May depending on how dry the plants have been over winter.
The flower bud looks like a tiny pinkish proto-pineapple nestled in the whorled center of the plant.
This is where you see actual flowers emerging from the spiny segments of the bud maybe one or two weeks following the initial indication that the plant would fruit. Each flower sets a fruit just like many other fruiting plants. So, each segment is a fruit in its own right, and a pineapple is actually a clustered formation of many smaller fruits.
More weeks pass and the emerging pineapple becomes more recognizable. The segments are still very separate, rough, and sharp, but the overall shape of the fruit and leafy top is beginning to form.
After months, it will seem to you as though nothing is happening, unless you have been photo documenting the fruit’s progress. You can just make out that it is getting bigger, the sections are beginning to flatten and the whole fruit is becoming green.
Another month or so, and you will be able to see the individual sections are completely flattened and filled out. It is still green, or, perhaps, more deeply green, and it has no odor to speak of. This will change soon.
Harvest time! It may seem like weeks and weeks from stage 5, but keep your eyes peeled for the initial signs that it is time to harvest. Ideally, like the image on the left, it would be 1/3 yellow, but you can also harvest slightly before this if the centers of the sections have started turning yellow and you want to guarantee your harvest. I pulled the one in the center because the top side of the fruit was just beginning to get sunburned, as you can see from the pale yellow with orange tints. I also harvested the one to the right as a test to see if there was a too early. I cut the stem holding the pineapple a couple or more inches down and set them up in a vase on the table to finish ripening. Yes, they will.
You can leave the fruit on the plant until fully ripe. However, as the fruit ripens (outside or inside) it will begin to emit a wonderful pineapple-y perfume that many outside critters may find too delectable to resist. I’ve known fellow pineapple growers here in central Florida who have waited eagerly to harvest their fully ripe pineapples only to find them hollowed out by opportunistic raccoons, fruit rats, and ants.
Stage 7
We are now deep in July. After a week and a half on the counter in a vase, the right hand pictured fruit above is totally ripe. As in, cut it up and eat it now, ripe! I could’ve cut it up and eaten before it was quite this yellow, but sometimes the pineapple waits for me and not the other way around.
At this stage of ripeness, I find the fruit tastes like Piña Colada without adding coconut.
There you have it, the seven stages of pineapple fruit in about 5-6 months. Check back for a how-to on carving this beauty!
And I’m not talking early in the season, because they are right on time. With a little more rain than usual during the winter, their flowering did not get delayed like last year. No, my early pineapples are first year bloomers!
I swear I am not going crazy. The pineapple plants that came with the house have quadrupled in number over the years and I feel I have gained quite a bit of experience with them. In the past years, whether planting tops or pups, each plant would take about two years before it bloomed
That is not what is happening this year. I have a pretty decent number of two year old plants that are pushing their cone shaped flowers into the air. In addition to this I have at least three one year old plants (one pictured) that are doing the same.
We have 12 blooming pineapples at the moment! Thankfully at slightly different stages of development. I have been attempting population control, but I might have to set up a produce stand by the road!
We brought the pineapple in this weekend based on recommendations I had read to harvest it when it was 1/3 yellow and then allow it to ripen the rest of the way inside. I think this is primarily to make sure that we get to eat it, not the raccoons in the area. It’s more baby plant than fruit, but hopefully it will be good.
I finally have definitive proof the humongous spiky plants we moved in the back yard are actually pineapples!
We’ve moved the pineapple. Initially I was worried about moving the plants when they were so large, but they needed sun that they weren’t getting in their original location: against the North side of the house. Without sun, they will never bloom; I found this out while trying to figure out what the plants were. I also found out that though it is really easy to grow pineapple from the top of any pineapple you buy in the store, it takes the plants two to three years before they flower and fruit. That’s a crazy investment for one primary and two secondary fruit crops before the plant is kaput.
It feels really great to look out on those derelict veggie beds and see something growing that I meant to put there, even if the pineapple plants came with the house.