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Hello and welcome to HealthyHousePlants.com, where we teach you all about gardening in the great indoors. If you’d like to support our show, please use our Amazon affiliate link below.

Today, I’m going to show you how to plant a pineapple to be grown indoors. You will eventually get a real pineapple that you can eat. It takes a while, and the pineapple you do get is generally small—so you’re going to get a baby pineapple when it’s all said and done. But it’s just a really fun project, even for younger people, though it does require patience because it takes a long time.

To plant the pineapple, you can use a pineapple you get from the store. You can plant the pineapple at any time of year. I’ll show you the process in a moment. During the first year, it will grow and produce foliage, and in the second year, it will grow the pineapple, which you can then eat. So, like I said, a little patience is needed, but it’s a fun project. I know some indoor gardeners who have done this sort of thing with fruits and vegetables and, if kept on a steady schedule, you could essentially have pineapples more frequently than every two years.

Pineapples are in the bromeliad family. Just like ornamental bromeliads, which I have a couple of videos on, they grow similarly. You can see that they have a funnel in the middle, like other ornamental bromeliads, where the water goes.

You can plant them at any time of year; however, you’ll have the most luck getting them rooted during warm months, which is why I’m doing this video in the spring. You’ll have better luck in that regard.

Here’s the procedure: First, get your pineapple from the store or from someone who grows them. You want to cut off the top, leaving about an inch of fruit at the top. I’ll show you—I’m cutting it right here.

Now, this part you can eat—this one smells really good, and I’m looking forward to eating it. But for now, you see I have about an inch of fruit left. You want to let this callous over for a week. It will lose water and callous over, like this one I prepared a week ago. You’ll notice the top part has shrunk—it doesn’t look like an inch anymore because there’s a lot of water in pineapples. When it shrinks, don’t worry; that’s okay. The reason you leave an inch is so that even after it shrinks, you still have a meaty section attached to the top part, which is where rooting will occur.

The next step, after letting it callous, is to plant it. I’m not planting this one because it needs another week to callous. Instead, I’ll plant the one that calloused over a week ago.

You want to use a mix of 50% pumice and 50% moisture-retentive soil. I’ll put a link below for soil and also for my pumice product that works really well for this. As mentioned, it’s a bromeliad, so it needs good drainage. You’ll also need rooting hormone to get this guy to root. Apply the rooting hormone to the calloused area, which will cause it to root. Be careful with rooting hormone—don’t breathe it in and it’s best to wear gloves when using it. Use a paintbrush or something similar to evenly distribute it. Once that’s done, pre-moisten the soil.

Now, you want to screw the pineapple into the soil where it makes contact. You’ll notice this is a pretty big pot. I usually say don’t use such a big pot for plants, but in this case, you don’t want to repot once it gets going. It will stay in this pot for the next two years. Towards the end of its life cycle, it will also create babies, so you’ll be able to harvest your own baby plants and start the cycle again.

As mentioned, it’s a bromeliad, so pineapples get most of their moisture from their funnel. Keep the soil slightly moist and put water in the funnel initially. However, it’s good to water the soil as well, especially around the area where you want the roots to grow.

You can tell it’s rooted when you pull it gently and feel that it’s firm in the soil. You’ll also start to see new growth up top, which indicates that the plant has established roots and is growing.

Some people prefer to cut off the fruit section and place it in a solution of rooting hormone and water for 4-6 weeks until it creates baby roots before planting it. This method is also valid, but I prefer to plant it directly and get it rooted without needing to replant later.

Fertilize the pineapple monthly with a liquid sea kelp or a balanced organic liquid fertilizer, especially when the fruit forms. I’ll include links below for these products. Spray the fertilizer on the foliage or place it in the funnel. The plant needs bright, indirect light—much like other bromeliads. I’ll link some videos for you on bromeliad care and propagating pups.

When it’s time to harvest the pineapple, it will appear in the center of the plant, and you can cut it off at the base. The base is underneath the top section, which you cut off, and you can start the process again with this new top.

So, that’s how you grow pineapples indoors. Thank you for stopping by today. Please leave any comments about indoor gardening tutorials you’d like to see. Remember to like, comment, subscribe, and share this video. And don’t forget to click the bell if you’d like to be notified when new videos are released.

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