Pineapple

Pineapple? That’s crazy! It is crazy to grow a pineapple, but I know that somebody out there wants to do it. If the authors of Growing Tasty Tropical Plants are to be believed, you can start one in a pot by simply taking the green top of a pineapple you buy at the grocery store and planting it so that the base is covered by about an inch of soil.

Pineapples need lots of light and warmth, so this is definitely a summer project. Once the plant has produced plenty of leaves and looks like it’s about ready to fruit, there’s a weird trick you can do to move things along. Take a slice of apple and push it into the crown of the plant. The apple gives off ethylene, a gas that promotes fruiting and ripening.

Now, the downside to growing your own pineapples is that after all that effort, the plant’s pretty much just going to give you one new pineapple. So it’s worth doing as a crazy horticultural stunt, but you’re not getting get an entire summer’s worth of pineapples for your piña coladas unless you go to the grocery store.