Are these pineapples mature enough to go into a bag with apples?
Are they ready?!
Well, you're gonna need some fruit first!
So, no, they are not ready to go into a bag with apples. The purpose of that is: all fruit emits ethylene gas. Ethylene gas promotes ripening. So, for example, if you have a fruit bowl in your kitchen with apples and green bananas, the bananas will ripen faster with apples next to them than if they sat in the bowl by themselves.
Wait until the plants send up a big spike from the middle. You'll get a very unique and pretty bloom. Let the flower die and fall off. The fruit will come from that. When you have an actual fruit, and it sprouts green at the top, then you can cut the fruit off and put it in your bag with apples to let it finish ripening.
It can take 2-3 years for a pineapple plant to produce a fruit. Yours look like they're about a year old or so; you might have a long wait in store. Go ahead and eat the apples now. ;>)
Also, I believe the parent plant sort of goes dormant after producing a fruit. It will send up pups, which you can then divide and re-pot. The pups will produce fruit in a couple years, but I don't think the parent plant will produce another fruit -- not entirely sure about that part.
Obviously, since it takes so long to get the fruit, you can see now why pineapple is so expensive.
Oh.... oh well. At least they're nice to look at. They have that going for them!
They are! Hang in there and keep 'em watered. You'll get some fruit!
(Hide the plants from squirrels. I waited so long for a pineapple, got a fruit and just before it was ripe enough to pick, the blasted tree rats ate it before I could get to it. And they didn't even eat it all. Bastids just gnawed a big hole in it. I'm like Wile E. Coyote with the tree rats and my ACME rockets. Grr!)
LOL! Awww! All that time and they totally wasted it! You can't even say atleast some one got to eat it!
CaptMicha, Did you buy your plants or start them from seed or from the top of a pineapple? I have one going I started off the top of a pineapple my son and DIL brought me back from Hawaii from their honeymoon.
Tops of pineapple. I didn't even know pineapple had seed. How'd he manage to sneak back a pineapple top?!
Hah they brought back the pineapple, we ate that. lol