Pineapples; Buying Instead of Growing Them.
This is my new blog series; Secrets of a Homesteader. I needed to start this series. Only because there are a lot of things we as a family do or buy that are still in and from the conventional world. As I write this, I have two small children and a husband that works a lot of hours away from our homestead. That leaves me to do the majority of the workaround here. I am not complaining, mind you. We chose this life and loved every minute of it. But there are only so many hours in a day and energy I have to do everything that needs to get accomplished.
I can find and buy fresh pineapples at a great price.
Just this morning I was cutting up and prepping some fresh pineapples. I had purchased from our local Sav-A-Lot grocery store and thought this was the perfect first post for this series. I had bought ten fresh pineapples for $0.99 each, a great deal. At my larger grocery store chains, I can never find them for less than $2.00 each. So of course, I bought ten. Pineapples sales go on and off from December to about February. I am always on the lookout for each sale. (Oh and by the way, I have also found this sale at Aldi.) And with every sale, I buy ten or so and can what I need like fresh pineapples in a light syrup, carrot cake jam, pineapple jam, Pina colada jam, making pineapple liqueur and of course cooking and eating them fresh.
When it comes down to buying all these items in the store compared to making them at home, it is hands down a better deal for me to buy the pineapples and prepare all these water bathed canned items at home. For one I can’t find Pina colada jam or carrot cake jam in the stores, can you? And for a second, it costs me much less to buy the pineapples and make all the things like canned pineapple chunks than buying them in the stores. Here, I will show you the math.
I can buy one 20 oz can of pineapple chunks for $2.50 each. That comes out to $0.13/oz.
Now compare that to buying one pineapple for $1.00 which gives approximately 16 oz of fruit and comes out to $0.06/oz. Half the price. But this doesn’t work when pineapples cost more than $2.00 each.
Pineapple plants are just not a good fit for this homestead.
If you don’t already know, pineapple plants take up an impressive size at full maturity. Pineapple plants can be up to six feet tall and wide. Along with the plant size, its root system can be up to five feet long past the actual plant. These plants also only produce one to two fruits in the entire plants’ lifetime before having to replace them. Plus, it takes up to two years for a pineapple to bear its fruit. My climate is also not right for pineapples to grow. They need a hardiness zone of 10-12 to grow properly. I am at a 7b-8a. We get too cold here, and so I would have to plant my pineapples in a pot outside and move them inside for the winter. So to sum up, it would take too long and too much space inside, and outside and too much effort to possible grow one fruit from one plant. Again buying pineapples for $1.00 each is the way to go.
It keeps our homestead eating on a seasonal schedule.
Well, at least my pineapple sale schedule. I think peak season runs typically between March through July. This doesn’t quite match up. But that is okay because it is my seasonal schedule. We don’t buy any fresh pineapples any other time of the year. So I do need to can enough pineapple chunks in syrup to last for meals through the entire year until the next sale season.
Eating on a seasonal schedule is important for homesteaders. We try to eat only the vegetables we grow during the spring, summer, and fall. Thus try to stick to this schedule for other things we buy at farmers markets. It is difficult to train yourself to eat this way when you have been so used to going to the store and buying anything you want from the grocery at any given time. Price be damned!
Now I say all this because growing pineapples for us is just not the right fit but I am not saying it is a bad fit for you. If you want to plant pineapples then by golly go ahead and do it and let me know how it goes for you.
