GIFTS: GUEST POST OF BIJEAN, SCIENCE LION MEDIA

For the Love of Pineapples

Hey everybody! Firstly, I want to send a huge thanks to YBP for providing me with her platform to reach you all. It’s really a pleasure to be here!

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Now, one thing I can tell you about myself is that I absolutely LOVE gardening, and more specifically, practicing horticulture! Recently, I wrote a piece documenting my journey of growing a pineapple from a pineapple crown for the first time (you can follow my experience here), and considering that I’ve been nurturing this plant for over 2 years now, I have really grown attached to it! 

Yes, THAT attached haha.

After making sure it didn’t get too dry, feeding it regularly, and sheltering it from the cold when winter rolled around, the sentimental value of this plant grew tremendously. And as a result, which I showcased in my previous article, my plant gifted me with a fresh, new pineapple! But I have a confession that I failed to reveal in that post…

That’s not my only pineapple plant! 😀 

So, by request, I’m here to introduce you to my “growing” pineapple family 😉

It’s now November, and the temperatures have become suboptimal for my little beauties, so I’ve brought them inside to stay warm and comfortable. For my first guests, please meet the pineapple version of the Jackson 5, whom I dub the Piña 5! (Piña is Spanish for pineapple) 😀 Which one do you think is the “Piña” version of Michael Jackson? 

To continue with my musician-naming parody, next up is Ike Piña! ☺ 

Ike is my oldest pineapple in the family, by a couple months. Earlier this summer, I had applied some foliar fertilizer that unfortunately was mixed at too high a concentration – not doing that again! Subsequently, the leaves experienced some burning which I had to prune off, and that may have stressed the plant out too much to consider producing a fruit this year. However, after bouncing back stronger than ever, I’m looking forward to next summer being its time to shine. *Fingers crossed*

Lastly, we have our main event…*drum roll please*…Tina Piña! 😀 

Tina has really stolen the show this year, as she conceived a baby pineapple back in August and is still nurturing it to maturity. There are still at least a couple more months of growing left in her baby, so I’ll have to wait a little longer before sampling its organic goodness (yes, I grew it and all my other pineapples organically, while hand-picking any weedlings that sprouted). And in the midst of all this excitement, Tina had an additional surprise for us…can you see it from this picture? If not, let me help you out…

Now, can you see that little pineapple sucker poking its head through the foliage? That, my friends, is the newest edition to the family! Maybe you all can help me with some prospective names, as it grows into its own plant! ☺

See, what I have grown to learn and love about pineapples is that they are gifts that keep on giving, as long as you give them love! Pineapples, in my opinion, are a microcosm of how the universe works which dictates that what you put in, is what you get out of it. Although admittedly pineapples are so resilient, they don’t require much attention at all to perform well!

I will be continuing to track the progress of the Piñas, supplementing them with grow lights and a stable climate to keep them happy through the winter, so be sure to subscribe to our page at Science Lion Media so you can receive notification of my updated harvest post in a few months. Additionally, I plan on conducting different growing experiments over the upcoming years to optimize the quality of my harvested pineapples, so stay tuned!

That’s going to do it for me on this post, but make sure to try growing your own pineapple(s); you won’t regret it, at all. Much love everyone!

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Gifts: A Special Series on Out-of the-Box Love

For even more fun and inspiration, do visit Bijean on Science Lion Media!