Pineapples take waaaay too long, it may be pretty, but justbuying one seems the best financial/time compromise... I planted one and all I have now are tonnes of small pineapple plants.... more than two years later.
Currently I have corn (of which the dog killed half last night, so I planted 3 times as many this morning), carrots, tomatoes, butter lettuce, guavas, avocados, bananas (which are pretty messy trees) and I also have some 3 day old sweet slice english cucmber seedlings ... now those fuggers grow alot in one day... wish weed would grow that fast... If you can get one of those large metal drums like they use for shipping oil, you can cut some holes in the side and grow nice easy pest free strawberries too...
I am doing a bit of experimenting with diffirent planting setups for the tomatoes... the winner is growing from a hole cut in the bottom of a bucket filled with soil suspended off the ground... it seems to grow 3 times as fast as any of the other planted on the same day... yep its an upside down tomato plant... and it doesn't seem to mind.