nice set up there Gary, nice to see so many blooming at once.
The Spanish Red is a real eye catcher.

enjoy,
-Ethan

Those all look so nice. Do you ever fertilize or do you just leave yours alone?

This year 5 of mine fruited. Three of which I think are smooth cayenne, one natal queen, and one I think might be sugarloaf. Gary are you interesting in trading something for a Spanish Red slip?

Nice! Very beautiful plants.

Harvested two the other day, as big as I've ever had, about 7 pounds each:

Gary

Thank you for posting these appetizing photos of your adorable pineapples! I especially like the one with three (or is it four?) heads, and how they have fat dumpy shapes like owls on branches or a moldy loaf of bread on end. The beautiful red one shows pups at the base of the fruit. Do you just transplant those pups and it makes a new pineapple plant (eventually?), and the existing plant dies?

Leave the largest slip (pup) on the mother plant and it will produce another fruit for you the next year. The other slips I usually break off a month or two after fruit harvest to transplant elsewhere. They produce in around 18 months, although my last bunch of particularly large slips actually flowered in only 5 months. I doubt I'll have you developing my advertising campaign for my fruit stand with descriptions like that (lol).

Gary

Thank you for posting those nice pics. Very nice looking pineapples Gary

Teeny one in front, Victoria, far right, Royal Hawaiian, next from right, MD2. The rest are smooth cayennes.

I bet the smell in your house is unbelievable.

congrats,
-Ethan

Fantastic pics! Is there a discernible difference in flavor among the cultivars? If so, which is your favorite?

Hi Ethan, they do smell fantastic, some of the women at work buy them half way to make their office smell good.

NTM, There are absolute taste differences. That's what I'm doing now is evaluating different characteristics, especially taste, to find out where to go from here. Smooth Cayennes are your regular type pineapple, but taste fantastic home grown. I had a cheese pine last year, tiny, but tasted the best I've yet had. I had a royale hawaiian a few years ago, but forgot how it tasted. My wife thought it was much better than smooth cayenne, so I'll pay more attention this time. I'll be tasting an MD2 (Dole extra sweet) and Red Spanish very soon. I have some other vars which I won't know about for a couple years. Some of which are considered by some to be the world's best.

Gary

You'll have to make a flavor spreadsheet for us, once all is said and done. Thanks for the info.

Nice!

I have tree of them, didn't even know they were pine apples LOL.... I always forget they exist... But one is fruting now, and its red like yours.

How long did it take to produce fruit? And how large do the plants get? I've read that pineapple plants can get 4'x4', but in your the pictures they don't look that big.

I will take some pics of mine today and post later. I can't even remember the last time mine bare fruit. All I know it has a small one now. I wonder, how often are they suppose to bare fruit??

Gary, how do you keep the critters from eating your pineapples? Every pineapple EVER grown in my neighborhood falls victim to the raccoons/opossums...sometimes when they are green!

Nice pics by the way.

Beautiful photos. Very nice pineapples too! :-)

Was wondering, when growing pineapples, once the plant fruits and has pups, can you keep the pups on the mother plant and allow it to grow?

Pineapple plants will usually produce only 1 fruit per plant, sometimes 2-3 (ratoon). So for a home garden, if we wish to continue to grow the pineapple plant for fruit in the same location, does it mean we have to pull the mother plant out right after harvesting the fruit or can the pups continue to grow on the mother plant?

gardenathome, the answer is up in this thread already, leave the first pup on the plant, harvest the other pups a month or two after fruit harvest and plant them where you wish. Since you leave one pup on the mother plant, it will produce next year. The mother plant will keep producing for a few years, then I usually pull it up and toss it in my woods. It will usually, eventually, produce even more pups or fruit, just not as prolifically.

Citrusnut, my plants can get 5 or 6' across. From a pup it's around 18 months to fruit.

Critters have only bitten my pines about twice out of 200 or so fruit, and I live in a rural area. Don't know why.

Gary

Hi, Gary! Thanks a bunch for the clarification. So if we wanted to continue to have pineapples in the same location, eventually we will have to pull out the mother plant and substitute it with a pup! :-)

By the way, do pineapple plants need acidic soil? I just saw that mentioned in another post. I think we will give it a try. Your pineapple plants/beds are inspiring!!! Gosh, Love both the foliage and the fruit! :-)

Acidic soil isn't as much a priority like a blueberry, but slightly acidic does help. So pine bark would be nice. Eventually you pull out the mother plant, but that might be after more than 5 years or so. They are very easy to grow, and are quite hurricane tolerant. Very little care, and less watering than most plants. Mine did get very beat up by this winter, so I won't be harvesting 50 or 60 pineapples like I used to :(

Gary

OMG! Are you kidding 50 or 60 pineapples!!! I would love that. LOL. :-)

They are too gorgeous! Seriously. We can't get over how beautiful your pineapple plants are. May we ask a couple of more questions please. Absolutely adore your Spanish Red pineapple, did you purchase the plant or grow from a top? I've never seen it in the supermarkets... Or the Champacca?

Also, could we ask you what fertilizer you use and how often in hopes that we can successfully grow them like yours! :-) Sorry for all of our questions and many thanks for your help. :-)

Fertilizer isn't the important factor, it's lots of rich organic matter. At least that was my method to success to get huge plants and fruit. Champacca was grown by a guy with an organic farm on Merritt Island. I traded some of my plants for a few pine slips. Spanish Red was from a guy in the Indian River rare fruit club. They were grown in that county back in the 1890's. I was selling all my excess pines at work, was getting $3 or $4 for them, I loved it, and my fellow employees were crazy for them. The cleaning crew would buy up any I had.

Gary

Hi, Gary! Thank you for the additional tips! Much appreciated. :-) If in the future, you can spare a pup for the Spanish Red and Champacca varieties to us fellow GW members, please do let us know... Will be happy to pay for shipping. Nonetheless, thank you so much once again as we have learned a lot here!!! :-)

Hi Gary, I love your plants. I've been growing pineapples indoors here in Chicago for over 10 years. I'm looking for Perola, Pernambuco, or Victoria pups to increase my collection. Do you grow these varieties? If so, please let me know. I would be more than happy to pay for pups and shipping cost.

Thanks

Al

Here is a link that might be useful: Indoor Pineapple Culture

Hi Al, this past winter my pines were quite devastated, will probably be a couple years til I have additional material.

Gary

I've never even considered growing pineapples but now I'm seriously thinking about it. The plants are so beautiful, can I just chop off the top of my store bought pineapple and plant that in the ground? Where might I find the red variety of pineapples?

Great pictures dghays!

Simon,
check Exotica, I believe they have 3 different varieties. You can snap the top off of a store bought one too.

-Ethan

Awesome! I have 2 plants growing that I started this spring. With luck they'll eventually fruit. Thanks for the inspiring pictures.

Hi Gary, sorry to hear about your pines. My Kona pines picked up Anthracnose from another plant. Two pines were severely infected and had to discard them. I only have one Kona pine now and I'm using 70% Neem oil to control the leaf fungus.

Al

I know this is an old discussion but where in the world did you find all the pineapples to get the tops from to plant? Okay I can understand that you can get a MD2 because I think that is the Del Monte variety grown in Costa Rica and I think other producers in Costa Rica grow and sell those in the US. But where do you get a Red Spanish for example? In the stores I see Del Monte MD2, Chestnut Hill Farms who are growers in Costa Rica have an MD2 as well, Dole sells Tropical Gold which I don't think is a Smooth Cayenne variety. You can find Maui Gold's sometimes in stores though. But for the most part I don't see Red Spanish or Smooth Cayenne in the stores or if I do I don't recognize them but since they sell middle of the road brands like Del Monte, Dole and Maui Gold it's hard to find the more interesting varieties. Of course sometimes I do see off brands at close out type of stores that are small and odd looking and I wonder what variety they are. I have been able to purchase Victoria now and then and grow them but I want a Red Spanish, Smooth Cayenne and maybe a White Pineapple top to grow but don't know where to find them for sale. I'm in Los Angeles and you are in FL I think so maybe you can get anything there but I can not.

coco-nut,
dghays passed away some time ago. He was a wonderful contributor to this board. I'm glad his pics and topics live on...