“It’s so cute!” “It’s adorable!”  They are talking about my new baby pineapple plant, the only bromeliad that produces a little edible extra.

How to grow a baby pineapple:

• Cut the top off a pineapple.
• Dip into rooting hormone and plant in a damp sandy mix.
• A couple of months later, when the roots have developed, repot into cactus mix.
• Wait 24 years.
• Threaten it — something along the lines of, “this pineapple plant has been here twenty four years and nothing’s happened. I think it’s time to get rid of the damned thing” seems to work well.
• Wait a couple of days.
• Applaud your new baby pineapple.

This is actually son of son of pineapple, aka Piney the Third, and this guy only took eight years to arrive. The spiky leaves are usually a muted blue-green but when they put out a new pineapple they turn bright green with vivid red on the top leaves.
In a couple of months he’ll be a lot like his dad, Piney the Second. Piney 2 got so heavy we had to rig up a coat hanger support. We had no idea of how to tell if he was ripe or not, but finally we met someone who said that we would know by the smell. One morning we were greeted by the intense aroma of pineapple and we knew!
And so it was ‘off with his head’, the crown that was planted and grew up to be our current pineapple plant.
Even though Piney 2 wasn’t that big, the flavour was so intense that we managed to make pineapple/strawberry rum drinks for us and our neighbours, strawberry/pineapple smoothies, and a fruit salad, with the deliciousness of pineapple dominating!