Growing Pineapple

Pineapple is going to be one of the few things not being grown from seed.

We have all probably heard of the way to make a pineapple plant. Cut or pull the head with the leaves off. Make sure all the fruit is cut off. Tear some of the bottom leaves off, then put it in a cup of water or in moist soil and wait for roots to grow.

Just like my avocado experiment I am conducting an experiment to see which method is faster. Unlike my avocado experiment I cannot start both heads at the same time. Instead I will be comparing growth on experiment days. (eg. Day 7 of pineapple in water compared to Day 7 of pineapple in soil)

On Saturday I started a pineapple head in water. Today I started a pineapple head in a pot of soil. The one in water has a 2 day head start. I will keep them watered and check on their progress at least once a week.

Growing Grapefruit From Seeds

Today we planted our grapefruit seeds, we are also running an experiment to see which method is ideal.

I have heard to either germinate them in soil, or between wet paper towels. Also I have heard of leaving the skin on and peeling it off.

Peeling off the skin is fairly easy. Look for the small point on top of the seed and bend it. A part of skin will come off as you peel it downward. It should leave small flaps at the top. Use those flaps to peel the rest of the skin off.

Over this past week we have been able to get 14 seeds. Using our greenhouse seed trays, and wet paper towels in a Ziploc bag:

• 3 were planted in soil with skin
• 3 were planted in soil without skin
• 4 were placed between wet paper towels with skin
• 4 were placed between wet paper towels without skin

It will take 7 to 28 days for the seeds to germinate.

We will be repeating this experiment with the honey tangerine seeds but on a larger scale. We were able to get 20 seeds from just one fruit today and we have one more left.

Kiwis and Apples

Kiwis
Last week I was quite surprised on how many of the kiwis have sprouted. Well this week, most of the seeds had their first leaves.




Germinated kiwi seeds

They will continue to grow inside the greenhouse seed tray until the roots get too crowded or the plants get too big.

Apples (Fuji)
The apple seed that already sprouted is starting to grow it's third and forth leaves. In another compartment another seed has sprouted and is in the beginning stages of growing more leaves. Apparently it is the compartment where we placed 2 seeds. Upon closer inspection we noticed that the other seed is also growing.


Apple seeds growing


The next apple seeds we will be planting are Gala apples. This time they will not be place fridge. They will be placed between wet paper towels in a plastic bag but at room temperature.

Growing Asparagus From Seed

Asparagus is one of those plants that produce vegetables for 10 to 20 years. They are usually grown from root crowns but I bought some asparagus seeds online and I'm going to give them a shot. I will have to wait an extra 1 to 2 years before I get asparagus but I'm willing to give it a shot.

I placed 6 asparagus seeds between a wet folded paper towel and I put the paper towel in a Ziploc bag. I had to wait up to 3 weeks before the seeds germinated. The first seed germinated within 2 weeks.

In my 12 compartment seed tray I placed the 6 seeds that I germinated between paper towels. As an experiment, I placed 6 seeds in the other 6 compartments. I'm just going to see if the paper towel speeds up the seeds compared to planting them directly in soil.

Avocado Pit Experiment

Back in November I decided to start a little experiment to test different growing methods of avocado pits. Browsing the Internet the 2 most popular methods are suspending the avocado pit by toothpicks in water, or planting it halfway in potting soil. Several websites also suggest peeling off the skin. I got 4 avocado pits and tested the 4 methods.

You can read my intro and an update on Hubpages.

After several months the pits where the skin was peeled off made no growth so I tossed them. The ones with skin both had roots. The one in water had a small root but it had cracked significantly while the one in soil had a much longer root but not much cracking.

Next step is to see which will grow a shoot first. I will keep you updated as soon as I get results.