Pineapple   F l o w e r s   and   F r u i t

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It is pretty amazing that you can grow your own personal pineapple fruit in your own back room, given a bit of patience! On this page I want to document the flower and fruit as it develops. According to internet sources (here and here), this process may take several months (longer in the UK I expect)! Having never seen a pineapple flower every development is of interest to me.

A reminder of the view on December 12th, 2004. 20041212

Flower: update January 2005

The emerging flower spike is growing more slowly than I thought - maybe due to the short days and cold temperatures at this time of year. This is clearly a long term process! 20050112

There are still no actual flowers to be seen (they will appear around the bottom of the baby fruit first and come out in rows up to the top). I am keeping the heating off in the Pineapple Room so it is about 15 degrees C. I will not put it on unless the weather turns really cold. Apparently the flowers always start in the winter when temps. are cooler. 20050112

Over a week after the above photos, and not much change except that the flower spike is now an inch or so higher up. There is a tough stalk growing underneath which is lifting it above the main rosette of leaves. Flower now six weeks old. 20050121

January 29th, 2005. The flower spike (properly termed an inflorescence) looks almost ready to start opening. The flower buds right at the base (not visible here) have a strong purple tinge. 20050129

Closer up.20050129

Flower: update February 2005

Well, life and pineapples are progressing. This is turning into a sort of blog... The fruit/bud/inflorescence thingy has definitely grown larger, but surprisingly the flowers still aren't coming out. Maybe they don't ever come out properly - we'll see! Notice that the tiny little crown at the top is growing. This may one day form my next Pineapple Plant! 20050213

Flower: update March 2005

I haven't added a picture for a month! Well, there's not much change actually. The pineapple plant seems to have forgotten something - in the end no flowers put in an appearance! The lower buds which I thought were about to burst into flower have done nothing. I think this may be the result of my pineapple plant being a commercial strain. Flowers are not wanted particularly, and seeds are cetainly undesirable, so the commercial varieties are bred for fruit only. It may also be a result of lack of heat and sunshine, I'm not sure.
The inflorescence is now more like a real pineapple fruit. It has swelled up considerably and also sports a nifty litte tuft of green leaves on top making it look very cheeky! Not shown here is the base of the plant which is very substantial these days. Shortly after fruiting it is normally expected that side shoots will emerge from the base and secondary or ratoon fruits often form on these. That is some time away yet though. My plant is very dusty but hopefully in another month or so it can go outside for some fresh air. It certainly looks good in the bright spring sunshine (we're now at the Spring Equinox -- 12 hours of light and dark!) 20050318

Flower: update April 30 2005

OK, I'm going to stop calling it an inflorescence. From henceforth it shall be known as the fruit, as it has clearly moved on from the flowering stage! The long days and bright sunshine make the whole plant appear happier. I'm also feeding it with used coffee grounds. Pineapples need very acidic soil and coffee grounds add acidity and nitrogen. The acidity allows the plant to take up trace inorganic nutrients.

Here's the pineapple in late April! It looks more mature. Having been a tightly packed ball of flower "eyes" it now resembles a hard, dark greenish/purplish pineapple. Each flower eye has expanded to the familiar pineapple-like criss-cross pattern. I estimate that it will be about half the size of a normal shop-bought pineapple by the time it finishes growing. This should be in another couple of months, then the ripening starts! I'm looking forward to that - I've read that the smell of a pineapple ripening on the plant is heavenly. 20050429

These pictures show the plant quite well, I think. Its amazing how close you can get with the camcorder - the fruit looks big but its only about three inches high really. The lower photo is a good idea of how big the crown is now. 20050429

High-res photo of young pineapple fruit (warning: this is a 0.7Mb jpeg; not recommended for slow links or computers with limited memory!)

Fruit: developments June 23 2005

Yey, summer's arrived...long warm days (hopefully!) And, time for pineapples to go outside. Having had a rather cold and very dry late May/early June, the pineapple was finally placed outside sometime in the third week of June. Shortly afterwards there was a week of fabulous warm days with temperatures reaching 30C on most afternoons. This really made the pineapple grow - just proves that what it wants is hot sunny weather! So, here are the first outdoor pictures for 2005:

On the patio, with my small date palms behind.20050623

Here's a good shot which gives an idea of how the fruit has grown above the main plant, on a tough stem, and is swelling up. I estimate that it will be about half the size of a supermarket fruit in the end. The photo on the right shows an interesting new development. Down near the base of the plant (just visible in the photo on the left) is a new shoot emerging which I expect will bear another fruit in a few months. This is a so-called `slip' and may bear a `ratoon' or secondary fruit in a year or so's time. 20050623

Fruit: developments September 24 2005

Whoops! We've skipped a few months... the reason being that not a great deal happened during the summer. it was an average summer, with some quite long spells of dry but coolish weather. The pineapple grew larger but remained hard and green, like a huge pine cone. In the last week of September I decided to bring the (now rather heavy!) plant indoors. September in England means fewer hours of daylight and colder nights - not good for ripening tropical fruit.

As soon an the plant was inside the fruit started ripening. Within a week or so it was this lemony yellow with greenish patches. I also realised that it was bigger than I thought - amazingly about as large as a supermarket pineapple! I'm chuffed! Oh, the string was there because the pineapple was listing rather heavily and would have fallen over had I not restrained it - the padding was there to protect the fruit from the string. If you're going to take three years to grow a pineapple you need to look after it! 20050924

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