Planting your Pineapple Top-and an Awesome New Gardening Site

Saturday the kiddos and I went to a local nursery/veggie stand.

Now obviously, since the violets and pansies are barely out in Upstate NY, this veggie stand is selling imported vegetables-otherwise there would be nothing to sell. And their produce is not organic or anything. However the prices are dirt cheap compared to the grocery store ($1 a lb for vine ripened tomatoes), and the quality is good. They also have lovely plants.*

(Full disclosure here-I spent $50 on bedding plants for the front flower beds, mostly petunias and Ganzia daises-2 full flats each. Two 6 packs of Violas, a couple of sweet potato vines, 2 mint plants for my planter, a cilantro and a sage plant. And I’ll probably spend at least that much again on Impatiens after Memorial Day. What can I say, I like pretty flower beds, and although I do grow a few things from seed, the growing season here is just so darn short. . . . this is just one of those things that YB and I choose to spend our money on. OK, who am I kidding. I choose. YB would be happy with a plain grass lawn and not a flower in sight)

Princess picked out a pineapple and asked if we could buy it. At $2 I considered it reasonable for an “exotic” fruit (hey, it’s NY, you can’t grow those here). I like to encourage the children to eat new and different things and not to judge food by how it looks-and a pineapple does look sort of funny, but tastes delicious-which drives home the point of not judging a book by it’s cover. Maybe next time I want them to eat the mystery fridge casserole I whip up that little lesson will help. If it does I consider the $2 well spent.

Back on topic, we took the Pineapple home, lopped off the top, peeled it, sliced it and ate it over the course of the next 2 days. (They would have eaten it in one sitting, but I made it last for two after dinner snacks). Then I seemed to remember that you could plant your pineapple top, so I did what I always do when I vaguely remember something-I went to the Internet and Googled it.

You can indeed plant a pineapple top and grow yourself a plant! And you can even force it eventually to grow a baby pineapple. The directions to grow a pineapple plant are on this neat site called You Grow Girl, along with excellent pictures. Since I could replicate the quality or the pictures, I will simply refer you there for the directions. Now that ‘ve properly trimmed down the top, I have to let it dry for seven days. Once that is done I will plant it and the kiddos and I will enjoy our little “science experiment”.

Besides finding the answer to my actual question, I found that the main site, You Grow Girl, was a really interesting gardening site. I spent more time than I should this morning wandering around the homepage (must. . . do. . . .laundry. . . .). Apparently there is even a book-I’ll be checking out my library archives the minute I post this to see if I can request it. The whole site is sort of a “Craftster” for the gardening set. Their own description is:

You Grow Girl was launched by Gayla Trail in February 2000 and has grown into a
thriving online community that speaks to a new kind of gardener, seeking to
redefine the modern world relationship to plants. This contemporary, laid-back
approach to gardening places equal importance on environmentalism, style,
affordability, art, and humour.

Right there on the front page is an article about foraging nettles, a toilet paper roll seed starter, and making your own homemade organic liquid fertilizer from other plants. So it may not be a site dedicated to frugality, but there is plenty on there for the frugalite gardener to look at.

Enjoy!