Pineapple progress

 Remember this picture? This is from Aug 2011. This was our pineapple that we planted for family home evening. Now, I in no way am a gardener. If I was given a row of something growing in a garden and told to weed it I would have no idea how to tell what green things coming from the ground were the crop and what was a weed. My dad can attest to this fact because when I was a younger lass he decided it would be good for us to help him weed. I was told to weed the flowers growing along the driveway. I went to my assigned location, saw a huge weed and started to pull. This weed was stuck tight! I pulled with all my might. By the time I finally got the stupid weed out of the ground, I was sweating like a fat man in a sauna. I was breathing heavy enough that my dad must have thought that I was having a heart attack. He turned from what he was weeding to see me holding the evil weed I had just wrestled out of the ground. I was really proud of myself until I noticed that my dad wasn't congratulating me on getting this weed that seemed to have been wrapped around the core of the earth. His face actually fell and he said with his famous sigh,"That was a rose bush." Oh dear, that's not great! Sorry dad! Clearly I am no gardener. Planting a pineapple didn't seem to help me learn either. Since we don't have a spot of land to grow a pineapple in the ground, I thought that using a five gallon bucket would work almost as good. It would have except that I didn't even think of how the excess water was going to leave the bucket. I wonder if I thought that the dirt would just eventually drink the water. I don't know what I was thinking, but needless to say our little pineapple didn't stand a chance. Thanks to all the excess water it received, it drowned pretty quick. Not to mention the little hands that on more than one occasion pulled the pineapple out of the dirt. When they came into the house holding it, I figured it hadn't been out of the dirt very long and I could probably just replant it. Just in case you were wondering, that doesn't work. The plant dies. Anyway, we had to say goodbye to our first pineapple.

I don't want you to think that we gave up all together. Oh no! We put our shoulder's to the wheel and pushed along! We planted another pineapple. When I told B that I really wanted to try again to plant a pineapple he told me that maybe we should put holes in the bottom of the bucket so the excess water has somewhere to go. I told him that I thought that was a brilliant idea. I'm pretty sure I told him that while he was at school I could try using a hammer and some nails to put holes in the bucket. He said that he could just use a drill. I looked at him and asked,"That won't crack the bottom of the bucket?" I feel so stupid for myself. What did I think taking a hammer and nails to a plastic bucket would do? I'm pretty sure my method would crack the bottom before B's method. Thankfully he's smart enough to know that drilling holes would work. We planted our second attempt in Jan of 2012. It takes a year and a half to grow a pineapple. We were getting nervous that our second attempt had either died from being shoved in a plastic bucket with no room for the roots, or been cooked to death since we live in a place that makes the surface of the sun seem chilly, or that it wouldn't grow by the time B is done with school(7 weeks to go!!!). But I am happy to report that we were wrong on all accounts!

How awesome is that?! Now I realize that it's still tiny. But, it's still growing! I get so happy every time I look at our pineapple that I feel like we should name it and make it an official part of our family! I don't know if it will be eat-able by the time we leave, but I'm just so so happy that it's growing and that I didn't kill it that I would be ok leaving it with a family in our ward that has five or six pineapple plants and avocado trees. Being able to grow a pineapple in a bucket has given me a renewed sense of having a green thumb. I can hardly wait to try growing something else like herbs that can sit on my kitchen window and don't have to be weeded!