Question
Two years ago, I decided to try my hand at growing a pineapple that spent the summer in my little greenhouse. In autumn, I brought it to the office. Beautiful leaves grew steadily. It was very beautiful. The following summer, I brought it home and it spent the summer on my porch. It continued to grow well and in autumn I brought it back to the office again. It’s placed in a window where there’s sun for about 7 to 8 hours a day.
During the Christmas vacations last year, it stayed in the office on its own for two weeks and nobody watered it during that time. When I got back from the vacations, it was pretty dry and around January 15, to my great surprise, I saw a pineapple appear. Within 15 days, a large stem had sprouted with a very small pineapple at the tip. After that, the pineapple and its plume continued to grow.
Why did my pineapple turn into a fruit? Is it the lack of water during the holiday season? Will it be edible? And when will I know it’s ripe? Will another pineapple grow later from the same plant?
Answer
Congratulations! Managing to produce a pineapple in two years under our conditions is quite a feat! In nature, this plant produces every 18 months or so, but under the conditions of most homes, it takes 6 to 8 years to obtain a fruit… and often the plant never bears fruit.
I don’t think it was the two-week dry spell that triggered the flowering. In nature, pineapples can cope with drought as well as frequent rainfall, and they don’t bloom any earlier because of it. On the other hand, what really helped was the excellent lighting in your office (7 to 8 hours of sunshine a day is rare in indoor settings). And also, by putting your pineapple outside for the summer, you give it even better conditions than in your office, as the sun is even more intense. I think it’s because of the excellent quality of the light (plus your good care) that the pineapple has fruited so young.
As for your other questions, yes, you can eat the fruit. When it changes color (turning golden) and you feel it soften as you squeeze it, you can be sure it’s ripe. And, yes, other plants will appear at the base of the mother plant after the fruit has been harvested, but note that the mother plant will gradually die after flowering: pineapples only bear fruit once in their life. What’s more, you can harvest the crown of your fruit to start another plant.
Larry Hodgson published thousands of articles and 65 books over the course of his career, in both French and English. His son, Mathieu, has made it his mission to make his father’s writings accessible to the public. This text was originally published in Le Soleil newspaper on May 5, 2005.
I did this, when I was in High school in 1976, the weather never gets under 10F most winters, so a greenhouse worked well & we had fruit in the third summer.
That was the sweetest Pineapple I ever tasted, fresh from the vine so to speak, there are three ways to grow the plant, 1 from the crown, from the suckers & plant division of the plant stock. See You Tube for details.
In 2024 I have two Pineapple crowns in the house now, waiting for the weather to get in the 70F, then I will take them outside for the summer & repot them also.
Much like the spouting of Sweet potatoes slips in the early Spring for planting when the ground warmed up.
Good article.