Fresh Dirt and a Cheap Hair Cut

Benign neglect, but neglect just the same 

I pulled it up by the top and looked.  Covered with damp earth were the little roots I was hoping for.  Pulling up a plant to see how it is doing is not a "Gardner's Bible" recommendation, but the pineapple tops were not actually secured in the soil.  By tipping them sideways and taking a peek, I could see three or four tiny whitish roots coming out from where the leaves had once been.

Little roots popping out the sides

Several months ago when the pineapple seed experiment went South, the pineapple top experiment began.  Now through occasional care and frequent neglect, it appears that they have survived and have even grown.  How amazing!

 Always remove the dead or dried leaves or twigs from a plant.
Leaving only the green is a vast improvement.
It's easier to tend something that looks good.
I'll pay closer attention now and actually care for them.

To honor their wondrous efforts in holding on and, indeed, growing this long, Things I get to do today seemed appropriate to include giving them fresh dirt and a hair cut.

Pineapple Progress

Three in this pot

They hit the dirt about two weeks ago.

Two here--a tiny one at 12 o'clock

Their tiny root feet have been wiggling their toes in soil for that long.  And even though the "strides" are proportionately small, the baby pineapples are making progress.

The biggest one of the bunch at a whopping 1/4" tall.

As a faithful gardener the Things I get to do today will certainly be to chuck all seven of them under their little chins and say, "Good job, little planties!"

Had a quick visit with the Pineapple Devas--they are tickled pink over this experiment.

Grow Your Own Pineapples the Easy Way

Pineapple incubator!

Trumpets!  Fanfare!  The impossible has happened from something that I didn't know existed.  Admittedly not knowing about pineapple seeds is my fault.  Under different circumstances, I could have known about these little black specks. See post "Pineapples Have What?" from 10/20/12.

I had collected a half teaspoon of the seeds, determined to make them sprout.  Personal determination has nothing to do with the will of the life in a seed.  It sets its own timetable which said three or four months. Sources on line gave several suggested ways to help the life in the seed explode into a plant.  I chose the "damp paper towel in a baggy" method.

Cutest Babies you've ever seen, right?
The seeds are about 1/8" long.

The baggy went on top the refrigerator, which in the old days was a warm place.  That's different now.  After six weeks I moved the baggy incubator to a warmer, more consistent heat source, the top of a salt lamp.

And today, while chatting on the phone with my sister, I casually inspected the baggy to check for any signs of mold (the only thing yet to grow in there).  Her ear is probably still ringing from my wild squeals, "Wait! Wait!  You are not going to believe this!  They are sprouting!"

After settling enough to explain "what" was sprouting, I realized that there is a new item for Things I get to do today:  set up a plant nursery for a dozen baby pineapples plants.  And this is just the beginning.  Who said it would be easy?

Pineapples Have What?

Seeds on the cutting mat and on the fruit

Am I the last one to know?  Things I get to do today found me in the kitchen preparing a pineapple.  My usual procedure is to slice off the bottom, slice off the top, slice off the sides in strips.  The little brown eyes can be ignored or cut out or munched around or munched up when it is served.  This time the pineapple was different!

Around some of the eyes were flecks of dark brown.  When I scraped to remove the fleck, it got bigger and squirted out an object that looked like a fat, curved flax seed.  No way! The more I scraped, the more seeds I collected. Since when do pineapples have seeds?

Seeds popped out.  One seed with just its tip showing

An on-line investigation showed that pineapples do, indeed, have seeds, that others were as surprised as  I was, and that you can actually sprout the seeds and grow a pineapple plant. Five years to harvest it said.

High germination rate I'm told

You know me.  I'm all over this one.  We are going to grow pineapple (plants)  and I'll keep you posted.  If I'm still blogging in five years, I show you the home-grown fruit.