My brother Jerry started us growing a few pineapple plants years ago.  Now the few we have on the porch are so big that you have the jungle effect as you walk through the path left for the humans.  Jerry moved and left his plants for us when we bought the farm, and we're now growing his and ours.

This pineapple grew off of a pup plant that Jerry left for us when he moved earlier this year.  It's had a though time staying upright.   We tried staking it a couple of different ways, but we finally had to pull the pot it grew in out to the edge of the porch and tie it for support.  That worked just fine.

Ross and Adam were more than happy to do the honors of harvesting our 2000 crop.  Sure it was only one pineapple, but it was fun.  We've watched it grow and waited for it to mature for a long time.  It tasted great, too!  I wish you could tasted it or even just smell it!

Most of our pineapple plants were started by tops of pineapples we bought in the grocery store.  Some of them are pups, though, which are shoots that grow from the base of an old pineapple plant.  Once a pineapple bares fruit it dies.  We wait for pups to grow and encourage only one.  Eventually they usually bare, too.  The problem with this pineapple not supporting itself is that it was produced by a pup that grew at an angle.   Then the enormous weight of the pineapple was too much for the plant to support.

We have such a mild winter here in southern Louisiana what we're able to leave our plants on the porch year-round.  Once or twice each year we might throw a tarp over them for the night, but that's about it.  We also have found that the perfect soil for planting them is good compost.  In two to three years the plants usually bare fruit.