Mother Earth News: Growing Pineapples Outside the Tropics
Here's my latest for Mother Earth News. I posted recently about growing pineapples in North Florida. I took that piece and framed out a deeper look into raising pineapples outside their natural range:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/growing-pineapples-zbcz1305.aspx#axzz2SCAV2hCA
I'm a big fan of zone-pushing, as I've written before. Pineapples are one of the easiest plants to do this with - much easier than key limes or papayas. They're tolerant of abuse, can be grown in small pots - and they taste a lot better when you grow them yourself. Go buy a pineapple. Eat it. Plant the top. Enjoy the awesome.
Labels: mother earth news, pineapples, tropicals, zone pushing
posted by David The Good @ 3:33 AM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
Hi, I also grow my own pineapples in Zone 10, FL, and completely agree that the taste is just so superior to those in the grocery store!
Oh yeah! Independent corroboration!
Thanks for stopping by.
"I use heavily diluted urine, compost, a little dissolved Epsom salts and fish emulsion every once in a while … but they probably don’t even need that."
Ha! proof that you're into pee-ponics! :)
I have three pineapples. This winter I lost nothing to the chill demons, but my pear tree only made 5 flowers so we won't have any pears this year. Pineapple are less cold tolerant than my neoregelia's and the other pineapple bromeliad (species unknown) that i enjoy. I find the thicker leaved, spikier broms can take more abuse than the thin leaved, namby pamby nursery-borne bromeliads. pineapples can take a lot of abuse but cant take the cold at all. good article!
You scatologically-minded fiend!
I know what you mean about the pears. I got ZERO blooms on my oldest pear tree this year. But the tropical stuff is doing better than it did last year.
I think that's why it's good to grow a ton of stuff... from tropical to temperate. No matter what the year looks like, something will do okay.
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