I didn’t know either, I just put random seeds into pots, sometimes they work. I’m curious about the harvest too.

I also put a seed into a balcony pot, which isn’t doing as well. I thought it was too cold outside maybe, but I have another suspicion…

I’d start with some basic Linux networking and tools, if you don’t have them already.

I don’t know if that’s the basics everyone knows these days, but… learn how TCP,UDP,ICMP,TLS relate, what a netmask is, what is ARP and MAC addresses. Fire up Wireshark and look around what is happening on your network. Learn some basic commands like ip -br -a and ss (or the older netstat) so you know how to figure out which program is listening where. Learn how to manually resolve a DNS name (dig or host). How tunnel a TCP connection or a webbrowser through ssh (port forwarding, SOCKS proxy). Learn enough of the HTTP protocol so you can manually enter a valid GET request over a simple TCP connection to port 80 with netcat or nc. Or use httpie or curl for the same purpose. You can’t host a lot with that knowledge, but it helps to figure out why things are not working.

I don’t keep track, but I’d say about 3 years from store-bought pineapple (fruit with crown, cut off the bottom leaves) to flower.

I have harvested several already. I don’t know what I’m doing right, but I consistently get a flower and a fruit. I think it’s the warm and sunny location.

Anyway, here is what I do: Water every 2 weeks (pineapples are specialized to survive dryness and store water in their leaves, so not too much I guess). The tap water is a bit hard here, and I read you should filter it so I always do, but never tested without. Standard soil, a few stones as drainage in the bottom (I doubt this matters a lot). Do not put the plant on the balcony on a sunny summer day, when I did it wilted within 2 days and didn’t recover. I guess it really hates cool nights. The pot size has a big influence, the size in the photo seems to be optimal, with a smaller pot I get smaller leaves and a smaller fruit (600g instead of 1100g).

And before you take my advice, I should mention that many plants have wilted in my care at that window. Just not pineapples.

The only thing I noticed is that the size of the pot has a huge effect on its growth.

Apart from that, I have no idea what I’m doing right. It may be the sunny, south-facing window. I have harvested several pineapple fruits over the years. They seem to be absolutely unstoppable and unkillable and predictable in their growth here. They don’t care about seasons (it’s snowing!). The only time I managed to kill one is when I put the pot outside in summer - it went bad in just three days.

Older photos: https://log2.ch/gal/ananas/