If you like pineapples, you can grow them at home easily. And yes they taste just as good, even better than store bought ones. Why! Because they ripen on the vine and are naturally sweet.

Growing in the shade outside in Arizona !
AND THIS is not RIPE YET!

Click Pictures below for Larger Image !

Just Emerging	Coming Out !	Getting There	Just about Ripe
Just Picked	2 More Plants getting Ready	Fresh Crown 2 Months	4 months after planting

Now how to do the same at Home !
How to grow in quick easy steps

(1)
Buy a Pineapple
Get yourself a Pineapple from the store.
(Choose a healthy pineapple. If the leaves pull out of the center easily, then you do not want it.)
The greener the leaves the better

(2)
Remove the Top

Remove the crown from your pineapple by twisting or cutting it off. Any adhering flesh should be trimmed off its base, or it might rot after planting. After trimming, cut the bottom of the crown (its stem) until you see root buds, which are small round structures visible around the perimeter of the stem base. Remove as little tissue as possible to avoid cutting into young stem tissue. To make planting easier, you can also strip off some of the lower leaves,
exposing up to about three-fourths of an inch of the base of the crown.

The small brown-colored bumps below the leaf scars are root primordia (the beginnings of roots) and there may even be a few short roots at the base if the crown. Note the small circles or dots on the bottom you just cut in the picture below.
This is where you stop cutting.
Sometimes you even will find roots already coming out the sides once you remove some of the lower leaves.

(3)
Let Dry !

After trimming and stripping, place the crown upside down in a dry, shaded place for about a week (2 to 5 days) before planting.
This will permit the cut end and the leaf scars to heal and prevent rot.

(4)
Soil, Watering, Light and Temperature

I mix 2/3 potting soil with just plain dirt. But I have grown them in just plain potting soil mixed as below in this paragraph.
Most potting soils will do fine as long as they drain well. In other words, if the potting soil is fine, mix in some courser bark type potting soil to help let the roots get air as the soil dry's and does not become to compact.
When I start off the freshly cut crowns, I like to use cactus mix and bagged compost mixed at a rate of 50/50.
Be sure there is good drainage since pineapples do not like "wet feet." Provide drainage by placing a curved piece of broken pot over the hole in the bottom of the pot. Over this, add about a half an inch (1 centimeter) of coarse gravel. Then add your soil.
Start your pineapple in an 8-inch porous red clay pot. Later, when it outgrows this, transplant it to a 12-inch pot, the largest size you will need.  Plastic posts can also be used, but extra care needs to be taken to be sure adequate drainage is provided
and plants are not over watered.
Tamp the soil firmly around the base of the crown at planting. Avoid getting soil into the central leaves of the crown.

Watering

The pineapple plant is miserly with water, requiring only about 20 inches of natural rainfall per year.
You need only wet the soil once the soil gets on the dry side.
Never keep the soil moist and damp all the time. Soak, then let almost completely dry.
If you notice that the center leaves start to rot and you can pull them out. YOU OVER WATERED!
And the center is dead. With care, more shoots should appear in a few months.

Light and temperature

Pineapple is a tropical plant and frost or freezing temperatures will kill it. If you live in a temperate climate, your pineapple must divide its time between your house and your porch or garden. If you want to actually get pineapples, you will need to give the plant plenty of light.

During summer, set your plant on a sunny porch (In Arizona a shaded south facing patio is great). Do not take your plant out of the house until all danger of frost is past. When you first remove your plant from your house, keep it in a semi-shaded spot for several days to prevent sunburn.

During cold months, keep your plant in the house.  Bring it in early in the fall.  Place it near a window or sliding-glass door for maximum sunlight.  At night, move it away from the window to prevent freezing.  If the room is warm enough for you to be comfortable, the pineapple will be at the right temperature.

You can also grow your plant indoors by using "Plant-Gro" fluorescent light tubes  This light can also be helpful if your windows do not let enough sunshine into the room where you are keeping your plant.  Keep the light on for between 12 and 14 hours per day.  When the plant gets large enough to bear a fruit, you should reduce the day length to 10 to 11 hours until the inflorescence appears in the center of the plant.  You can then return to longer days.

Producing Pineapples (The Secret)
Calcium Carbide

It will take approximately 2 years before your pineapple plant is able to produce pineapples. But most likely you will need to help it along. The fastest and most assured way to get a pineapple is using Calcium Carbide, the same thing they use to use in miners lamps. You can find this by searching on the internet. I have tryed the apple technique and it hardly ever works and plus apples can be expensive if you end up using 1/2 dozen of them. Might as well buy the pineapple in the store and save the money.

Here's how you use calcium carbide. Take 1 teaspoon of calcium carbide and put it in an 8 ounce glass off water outdoors. It will bubble and fizzle. This is gas escaping and you must wait till it stops. Also insure you do not light a match around it since the fumes while it is reacting to the water is flammable. Once it is done bubbling, pour the mixture in the top of the crown of your pineapple. In 5-6 weeks you should have a small bright pineapple appearing as in the picture above. This is the only sure way I have found to get the Home Grown plant to produce a viable pineapple. You can do this on young plants about a year old, but will get small decorative pineapples which are great conversation pieces, but not really big enough to eat.

(6)
Ready to Eat !

Your pineapple once it appears will take 6-8 months before it is ripe. I like to let mine almost get completely ripe before picking. Firm and almost all yellow with a little green left. Once you remove your pineapple, DO NOT DISCARD YOUR PLANT. If you still take care of your plant after picking the pineapple in a few months you will see new shoots appear. These can appear at the base as well as the stalk. This is your next generation of pineapples. To insure you get a large pineapple in this next generation, Remove all but one of the shoots after they have reached about 5-6 inches long. Take those shoots you removed and start them off just like you originally did with the crown in the first place. One original plant can lead to dozens in short order.

And that is How to Grow a Pineapple

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