The Mystery is Solved - October 3, 2019 @goldenoakfarm
On September 26, 2019 @kindredacres posted a photo she had labeled pineapple sage in her Food Forest update. It looked nothing like the plant I had been calling pineapple sage since 1992.
My sister planted the old herb gardens that year, labeled all the plants, and made a map. She also left all her herb books when she promptly moved to New Mexico to live. I knew nothing about herbs and had a toddler.
So I sat down and made an index card about every one of the 125 she had planted. The cards had Latin name, common names, sun/water/soil/feeding requirements, propagation info, medicinal, culinary, other info, and toxicity.
I pulled out the card I had for Pineapple sage, and sure enough, it matched @kindredacres. I’d not looked at it since I’d made it, as pineapple sage is a benign plant. But it said “red flowers”. Hmmmmm…..
Not red flowers…
We agreed to figure it out. I was to take photos and send to her. But as often happens, life intervened.
On Thursday, I needed something to fill the dehydrator and went to get the “pineapple sage”. I took the photos of the now going by plant. And I was telling my intern about these turn of events as we loaded trays.
Seedheads
My helper friend came in for lunch about this time and heard the story. He had always said he thought it was a mint, and I would always say, nope, pineapple sage.
So he whips out his smart phone and looks up “pineapple mint” to see if there’s such a thing. There is, and it matches perfectly.
There had been at least 6 different mints planted in 1992. They had hybridized over the years and I ended up pulling them all out as they had lost flavor and most of their scent. But this one never mixed with the others, not sure why. And somehow became “pineapple sage” which must have died early on, as I don’t remember it.
So now I must make the effort to remember it is a mint (not hard as it behaves like one with its world domination behavior) and call it correctly. Looks like I need to find seed for “pineapple sage” so I will have that also. It’s a really lovely red…
I was just thinking that the picture looked like a mint.
I'd love to get some pineapple sage, as it's supposed to be nice as a tea. I've only ever found one once, though, and it was expensive fur the condition it wa in. Must be a sought after plant. I'd not thought of getting seeds too grow it. I ought to make a list and order seeds for the things I've been wanting for a while.
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Up until this year, that was how I got most of my plants, unless someone gave me some. The exception was lemon verbena, as I could never find seeds for that. So when I could afford it, I'd buy 4 of them each year.
It's very interesting post, thank for this ! "as pineapple sage is a benign plant. But it said “red flowers”. Hmmmmm….." :) have a nice day !
Oh awesome! I'm so glad you figured it out! I've not heard of pineapple mint. I have orange mint, chocolate mint, and many other varieties of mint but not pineapple mint. Looks like I'll be in search of some! Hahaha. Does it truly taste like pineapple and mint?
Well, enough so it masqueraded as pineapple sage for decades... :)) I could send you cuttings....
Oh and P.S. come spring I often list live pineapple sage plants for sale in my shop so if you can't find any before then you can check my shop. :)
Oh! Good to know. I will try to remember to look in spring...