The
Story of How We Grew Our Own Pineapples
What
Should we do with a Long, Narrow, Boring, Dry, Hot Space beside our House?
Well
... We never Walk in that Space so close to the House;
Let's put in a
Garden Bed! Naturally!
March 7, 2013
- Take
up two rows of Tiles and Stack them for an Edging.
- Clean
out lots of Construction Debris buried in there and haul it away!
April 4 + April 12
- Next you Create a Soil! - Crumpled
leaves, Shredded coconut husks, Burnt rice husks, Fresh rice husks, Plain old soil and
Water;
- Mix together and Pour into the New Side Garden Bed.
- Mix together and Pour into the New Side Garden Bed.
April 2
- The First Plants to go into the New Bed: Bird's Nest Snake Plants (Sansevieria sp.),
which I found in a pot, dried out in someone's garbage pile ...
which I found in a pot, dried out in someone's garbage pile ...
April 26
- The Side Bed now has 6 Pineapples, the Sanseviera and one Lemon Grass planted.
- Method: Buy and eat Pineapples, Root the Top in water in the kitchen window, Once rooted, Plant it in the next batch of "Soil Slurry". Each "batch" took about 6 hours of Shredding, Crumpling, Chopping and Stirring to make it up so ... at one Pineapple per week we planted one or two every week over a period of about 3 months for a Total of 21 Pineapple Starts!
- Method: Buy and eat Pineapples, Root the Top in water in the kitchen window, Once rooted, Plant it in the next batch of "Soil Slurry". Each "batch" took about 6 hours of Shredding, Crumpling, Chopping and Stirring to make it up so ... at one Pineapple per week we planted one or two every week over a period of about 3 months for a Total of 21 Pineapple Starts!
May 10
- Jackie adding a Green Mulch of Leaves
- We Picked up 3 BIG Bags Full from Le Meridien Hotel's Gardeners.
- We Picked up 3 BIG Bags Full from Le Meridien Hotel's Gardeners.
May 16
- A Friend gave us 3 Bunches of Lemon Grass;
- We Planted Individual Lemon Grass Shoots close to the Foundation.... Later, We Added a couple of Aloe Vera plants and some Ti shoots (as we collected them).
- We Planted Individual Lemon Grass Shoots close to the Foundation.... Later, We Added a couple of Aloe Vera plants and some Ti shoots (as we collected them).
May 30
- The Side Garden - Starting to look like the Vision!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
July 27 + December
27
- The Lemon Grass began to overshadow the Pineapples. So ...
- We put in a Split
Bamboo Fence to lift the leaves up.
March 22, 2014
- We Cut off the Tops of the Lemon Grass To use for Mulch and ...
- Dug out the Lemon Grass Bunches.
- We replace them with Individual Lemon Grass Shoots and...
Really spread them out this time!!!
- We gave away 5-6 Shopping Bags full of Lemon Grass Shoots.
People eat them in soups and such.
- We Cut off the Tops of the Lemon Grass To use for Mulch and ...
- Dug out the Lemon Grass Bunches.
- We replace them with Individual Lemon Grass Shoots and...
Really spread them out this time!!!
- We gave away 5-6 Shopping Bags full of Lemon Grass Shoots.
People eat them in soups and such.
- The Pineapples are growing well. The newly planted Lemon Grass Shoots will soon catch up.
- We watch it all grow as we make compost and work on the Back Yard Garden.
- Finally! There is now No More Room for the Lemon Grass!
(Those are Wing Bean Vines on the Wall to the Right.)
- We take All the Lemon Grass out and let the Pineapples grow.
(We won't talk about the weeds!)
- The First "Flower" Starts to Show!
- We are Fascinated to Watch it Grow!
- SO BEAUTIFUL!
- Oh! This is Going to Taste Good! ...
- and ... there's Another "Flower"!
- The first Pineapple is developing its top and ....
- Our two Beautiful Pineapples!
- No More Flowers - Just Fattening up Fruit ...
- Will we ever eat them?
- What's This I See? It took so long we forgot about them! It's Ready to Eat!
- Harvesting that First Pineapple!
- Here it is!
- Twist the top off, ... pull off about 1 inch of leaves and ... put in water...
- Then ...
Cut off the Ends,
Slice off the Sides,
Cut in Quarters Lengthwise,
Cut off the Core,
Cut along the Seed Holes and Cut off the Dried Bits.
- Breakfast! - John takes a bite! ... MMMMM mmmm! So Sweet!
- After knocking off the ants! ... John picks the Second Pineapple.
- Full circle: Our very own, First Pineapple Top is rooted and ready to plant.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
??? - Need
to research if we should pull up the old plant with its newly growing side
shoots and plant a whole new plant (Will they bear fruit or not?) ... OR ...
... leave the old plant there and give away the newly rooted top? ???
... leave the old plant there and give away the newly rooted top? ???
??? - Need
to find out why only two plants have flowered out of 21 planted. The other 19
are big and beautiful and green and prickly (they catch our legs as we walk by!)
... but have no flowers!
- NOTE: Pineapple plants would make a really good Boundary Fence to keep out Animals like dogs + chickens. Those Leaves have Thorns!
... but have no flowers!
- NOTE: Pineapple plants would make a really good Boundary Fence to keep out Animals like dogs + chickens. Those Leaves have Thorns!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It took 2 Years and 3 Months to grow 2 Pineapples. Was it Worth it?
OH! YEAH! :-)
There just might be more on the other plants ....
Gardening and Growing Food is always Worth the Effort!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
And That
is the Story of
How we have Grown Pineapples in our Garden in Siem Reap,
Cambodia.
Thank You God for Pineapples and for our Health and Strength!
:-)
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
How come I don't see John doing any of the work? My old mentor use to say that he had the faith and his wife had the works and between the two of them they would get their garden to grow! Jeff and Melissa and two fo their daughters are back in Kona from your neck of the woods. I just finished my recent bible school with 30 students and in the fall we are running two, one in English and one Korean/English, which I will be staffing. Did you email t his letter out? I don't recall seeing it.
ReplyDelete