Question: Grow Your Own Pineapple!

Answer: It's the ultimate form of recycling. You'll need the fresh top of a grocery store pineapple, a 8-inch pot and some loose potting soil, a dry cleaner's bag and a large rubber band. Later on, you'll want an apple core.

Select your pineapple, and serve the fruit in the conventional ways. Save the top on a piece of newspaper for a couple of days to let its base begin to dry slightly. Plant the top into an 8-inch clay pot filled with potting soil. It will root and start to grow. Of course, you'll have to protect it from freezing weather since it's a tropical.

When the plant is 24 inches tall and wide you can force it into flower by putting an apple core into the crown of the plant. Cover it air-tight with several layers of dry cleaner's plastic and put it in a bright spot out of direct sunlight. The apple will give off ethylene gas as it decays, and that, in turn, will trigger the flowering and fruiting process. Leave it wrapped for 3 to 4 weeks, then open it up. Usually a fruit will start to form within a month after that.