Acres and acres of grassland and Cook Pines -- they look like Norfolk pines, those living Christmas trees we like to grow in Hawai'i -- but no pineapples. That’s pretty much all you see when you fly into Lana'i these days. Gone are the vast stretches of black polyethelene plastic mulch with spiky pineapple plants poking through. Maui and O'ahu still have some commercial production, but Lanai’s economy is now based in the hospitality industry, primarily the Four Seasons Lodge at Koele and Four Seasons Manele Bay resorts.The Koele resort’s garden walk is quite stunning in scale and scope, not to mention its unusual English style...
Quite a stark contrast to the local-style home gardens seen around town, which sort of run the gamut from this...
...to this....
So are there no pineapples at all on Lana'i? Of course there are. There are some nice ones at Alberta de Jetley's place, the only farm left on Lana'i (pop. 3,000) I'm told. Alberta is using organic methods on her diversified farm.
Speaking of diversified agriculture, this past Easter in Lana'i City's town center there was a tree bearing some exotic fruit -- not to be confused with eggplant, the Lana'i plastic eggtree...
Growing pineapple in your backyard is fairly easy. Save a crown from a delicious one you’ve eaten, and you’ll have a tasty clone to munch on. Let the crown dry for a few days before planting. Pineapple likes acid soils, fair weather – not too wet – and has high needs for nitrogen (N), potassium (K) and iron (Fe). If you fertilize organically with animal manures, you can skip applying iron. Pineapples usually begin flowering in December and are harvested about 6 to 8 months later.
Want to know how pineapple is grown commercially in Hawai'i? Click here.
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2 comments:
This is just the sort of post that makes reading blogs so interesting. Thanks.
Yep, got pineapple growing in my Bermuda backyard.
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