Recipe(tried): growing pineapples and mangos

I also put the top off a storebought pineapple into a container of soil. That was earlier this past summer '98, and it has grown a considerable amount. It will soon fill in the two gallon pot it sits in.
After such good luck with the pineapple I decided to try another fruit. I now have five small mango trees growing on my tiny front stoop. I may soon transfer them to larger pots. After eating the fruit, carefully open the fuzzy husk and there is the seed. Sometimes the seed will germinate inside the husk. If this happens it will have a main root stem and tiny underdeveloped baby leaves on a stem. You may still plant this seed if you get it out of the husk unbroken. Put it in a pot with good drainage on top of about four or five inches of potting soil and another inch 1/2 of potting soil on top of the seed. Water when it gets dry. Keep it moist but not constantly soggy. My little trees look pretty happy. If the seed has not germinated you can get it to start by putting it in a sandwich bag of moist spanish moss on a sunny windowsill for a few days. If it gets too wet it will grow mold and kill the seed, so check every day or so. Once it starts to grow, plant it. They are not frost hardy plants, so bring them inside when it freezes. I suggest starting seeds as early in the season as possible so they get a nice long first season of growth. I started mine kind of late and they are not yet quite a foot tall.
Pineapples will fruit after three years, I think. Mangos after two or three years, and I think only every couple of years do they bear fruit.
Good luck.

from chris in austin, tx.