Various Methods
Pineapples will propagate in a number of different ways. You can also purchase young plants at local nurseries as houseplants.
- Start from a bought pineapple
- Start from a slip
- Start from seed
Start With A Store Bought Pineapple
Each pineapple at the supermarket has the potential to grow a whole new plant. It’s best to find organic pineapple if possible. Sometimes chemically-grown pineapples have inhibitor on them to preserve the shelf life of the fruit. They will still sprout but may take weeks longer.
When you get your pineapple, twist off of top gently. It will pull right out leaving you with the fruit which you can eat or freeze. The green crown will become a new plant. Remove a few layers of leaves from around the base of the crown. Turn it upside down so the part where it separated is facing up, and leave it in the air to dry for one or two days.
Prepare a bed or a container with well-draining soil. Lightly set the pineapple top right-side-up into the prepared soil. It’s a bromeliad and related to air plants. Pineapples don’t need to be buried or packed down.
Start Plants From Slips
Mature pineapple plants will throw off tiny propagational offshoots called slips. Similar to a sweet potato slip, these shoots can be removed and planted to form a new plant. If you’re lucky enough to have a friend who grows some pineapples, ask them if they’ve got any extra slips. This method is often the fastest way to get a mature pineapple plant.
They look like tiny pineapple tops growing at odd angles out of the base of a mature pineapple plant. Typically they appear after the fruit has been picked for the year. Commercially this is how pineapple farms propagate their fruits.
Let the slips get to about one foot tall on the plant. Once of substantial size, remove them by cutting them off at the base. At this point, you have something very similar to a pineapple top which you can plant just as you would a pineapple top.
Start From Seed
Pineapple seeds are small, black, and found between the fruit and the outer layer of rind. To start them, dig them out of a bought pineapple and rinse them off.
Use the wet paper towel germination method to sprout the seeds. They take one week to sprout at which point you can put them in prepared soil.
