A neighbor had a mass of these plants growing in his yard, totally unattended; he said I could take everything if I wanted, and eventually I did. I'll include some of my earlier photos later on, but here are some from the past few months, covering various stages of fruit growth:

April 13

April 20

May 18 âÂ" a ratoon I pulled off the base for a friend. (The only source I've found that's been thorough calls the baby plants that emerge just below the fruit slips; those emerging between leaves farther down suckers; and those coming from underneath the plant ratoons. This is the terminology I'll use for the remainder of this post âÂ" but is it correct?)

June 1 âÂ" note the sucker that has appeared. I've always pulled off slips, but it's only recently come to my attention I can pull these things out as well: Is that true?

July 13

August 8

(Yes, that bag of dirt stayed exactly where it was for several months :). This is at my parents' house, and I don't get over there very often these days.)

So.

What type of pineapple is this? I've always called it a Rough Cayenne, but I think that was based more on a written description of what that plant looks like (namely, the spiny leaves). More recently, I've looked around on Google and it seems as though it might be a Red Spanish. But I have no idea.

Beyond that âÂ" and let's face it, more importantly :) âÂ" when do I pull this thing off the plant and eat it?

Anyway, thanks for reading! Any info on this plant would be greatly appreciated.

Dan

***

Of, perhaps, tangential interest:

This plant, if I recall, came from my initial, uh, acquisition from my neighbor âÂ" there was a crown from a rotten fruit, maybe a slip or two. Some of it was in pretty bad shape. In the dirt, I also found what I guess is the stalk of the plant. From here, several (and later quite a few) tiny plants were sprouting. Here's a photo:

It's the one in the front. (The one in the back is almost surely from a store-bought pineapple.) They don't look pretty here (this might have been after it had been out of the ground a while), but you can make out three tiny plants coming out. I recall getting four, maybe six plants that have grown to decent sizes from this stalk thing. Here are a few, though I don't think any of them are in the above picture: ...