Why Not Everyone Is Loving This Viral Pineapple Hack On TikTok

Not everyone looks at a piece of fruit and thinks "oh! I could grow that!" But for those that do, there is a TikTok just for you, and it involves cultivating your very own pineapple in a pot. User creative_explained talks through the process of growing your own pineapple. It begins with saving the green leafy top of the spiky fruit, prepping it by drying it out, then keeping it in a glass of clean water for a few days, before replanting it in a pot with good soil when the roots start to show. This TikTok tutorial on "how to grow a pineapple" includes watering tips and suggestions for where in your home you might want to keep the pineapple so it stays healthy and happy. The idea didn't stem from social but is a process that gardening sites like Gardening Know How have outlined.

But there are a few catches, which the TikTok video doesn't quite get address: namely that the plant needs a temperature range between 65 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit to thrive and that the pineapple only starts to flower (which leads to fruit) after it grows up – a process which can take up to three years (via SFGate). SFGate also points out that homegrown pineapple plants may not be willing to flower if they sit in an indoor pot at home.

A number of social media users who viewed the TikTok video had strong feelings about it. Some felt the video was a reach, as creative_explained claimed that if you follow the steps laid out in the clip, "you'll have a pineapple pretty soon." "Pretty soon?" one user asked rhetorically. "Pineapples take 2 years to fully ripen." A second viewer raised a similar objection: "Does no one know it takes several years to just get one? yea one plant makes 1 pineapple and I'm pretty sure its like 5 years or more." Some people simply recommended buying a pineapple for a couple of bucks rather than waiting a couple of years for one to grow.

But others were more entranced with the process than the promise of actually being able to DIY the tropical fruit. "OMG, the people complaining on here are so frustrating. So it takes a couple of years. I thought the video itself was fun to watch," one social media user fumed. "I had a pineapple plant I grew like that for 8 years! It never fruited but was a nice tropical house plant," another said with a grinning emoji. 

Responding to criticism, the video's creator explained that the speed wasn't the point: "For the ppl who say just buy a new one for $2: you don't learn how to grow by buying one." Time was not only not of the essence; it essentially didn't matter to creative_explained, who wrote, "When you're passionate about growing plants, time means nothing."