The Modern Farmer

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As a kid I often woke up early Saturday morning to watch The Modern Farmer. Farming on Channel 4 New York. Weird.

Living on the 5th floor with a northern exposure we had no direct sun. Trudi reminds me my mom grew spider plants. That was the extent of our flora, a spider plant.

In Connecticut I gardened on-and-off. We had a professional who wrangled our lawn and bushes (thank you Frank).

Now in California I’ve graduated to the big leagues… well in our small space. I think it’s cool there are grapefruit and sickly looking oranges growing in large pots under my care. Nearly all the plants are healthy.

Now my repertoire expands. I am told (after watching a few videos) pineapples are super easy to grow. We’ll see.

Helaine cut the pineapple for fruit salad and left me the leaves. I peeled a few layers down exposing stringy roots. I’ll give it a few days in water for the roots to get going, then plant it in a pot.

The first pineapple should be here before the 4th of July, right?

This climate is very conducive to growing. Many of the new housing developments displaced strawberry fields and other small fruit and vegetable farms. Avocados grew where I’m sitting.

I’ll try and make up for all that on the patio.

7 thoughts on “The Modern Farmer”

  1. Super easy to grow, perhaps, but pineapples take a long time to produce fruit. From what I remember learning in Hawaii, it can be upwards of 24 months before a single pineapple is produced from a new plant. Looking forward to tracking your progress (and super jealous I can’t grow this in Connecticut!).

  2. Living in Florida, we can grow pineapples in the yard also…we have 8 plants in various stages of growth from this year back to 2006….we generally harvest 3-4 deliciously sweet fruits a year, unless a hungry varmint gets one first. After planting a new “top” it will take more than a year to produce a pineapple. I am not a “green thumb” gardener by any means, this is all info from the trial and error school of farming…good luck with your new planting…

  3. Living in Connecticut….and wintering in Florida, we have a garden are both houses with small yards.

    In Connecticut along the coast, we have seasonal potted Orange trees that stay out on the patio from May though October, and produce many bright oranges in the hot season. We also have bananas that produce no fruit (Musa basjoo) but look very tropical with huge leaves all summer and early fall.

    In Florida both the Pineapples and grapefruit grow very well. However, from what I understand (not an expert), they both taste much better in warm and wetter climates like Florida, Caribbean, South America, then in Mediterranean climates like CA or southern Europe. I think they will grow in CA, but the taste will not be the same as tropical grown ones. This might be the reason that most (maybe all) commercial production of grapefruit in the USA is in Florida and not CA or AZ.

  4. Living in Connecticut….and wintering in Florida, we have a garden are both houses with small yards.

    In Connecticut along the coast, we have seasonal potted Orange trees that stay out on the patio from May though October, and produce many bright oranges in the hot season. We also have bananas that produce no fruit (Musa basjoo) but look very tropical with huge leaves all summer and early fall.

    In Florida both the Pineapples and grapefruit grow very well. However, from what I understand (not an expert), they both taste much better in warm and wetter climates like Florida, Caribbean, South America, then in Mediterranean climates like CA or southern Europe. I think they will grow in CA, but the taste will not be the same as tropical grown ones. This might be the reason that most (maybe all) commercial production in the USA of grapefruit is in Florida and not CA or AZ. Still, much fin to grow!

  5. I live in a 2nd floor apartment on the NE corner of the building. We get enough sun in the morning to do some serious container gardening. Every spring I start with herbs and gradually add tomatoes and flowers to the collection a week at a time. By July and August everything is going great guns. Last year I tried to do gourds. The thing took over one half of the deck climbed the walls and was threatening to take over the 3rd floor as well.
    But even when I didn’t have a deck I was serious about growing whatever I could in what space I had.
    Good luck with your pineapple. And everything else you grow. I find there’s nothing more satisfying than taking a seed, planting it, watching it grow, harvesting it and turning it into something useful, be it food or something else.

  6. There is absolutely nothing quite so good as a fresh, home grown, perfectly vine ripened tomato, plucked, washed, and immediately eaten over the kitchen sink, with the juice running down your chin and staining yout tee-shirt.

    That is what a real tomato should taste like….not those carrdboard frauds from the local stupor market…

    We grow a ‘Salsa Garden”—Tomatoes, peppers, cilantro, basil, etc.

    For fun, a few eggplants, squash and cucumbers. All on drip irrigation in raised beds.

    Heaven! Add the citrus, avocados, and other exotic and not-so exotic fruits like Guavas and pomegranets , and you have a real SoCal garden.

  7. And the dragon fruit, don’t forget the dragon fruit!

    Just watch out for the spines–don’t ask how I know that….

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