A Jeeralang Junction grandfather has stirred with Gippsland’s stereotype for unforgiving cold conditions after watching a potted pineapple plant bear a small, spiky fruit in his backyard.
“I knew [the plant] would grow but I didn’t think it would have a pineapple. I was surprised when the pineapple turned up,” Mr Lambrecht said.
John Lambrecht’s daughter, Belinda, brought the fruit from Queensland, south of the Tropic of Capricorn, five years ago.
“It was the sweetest pineapple I’d ever eaten,” Mr Lambrecht said.
He cut off the spiky top, left it in a glass of water for a couple of months to grow roots before potting the growing plant.
In December last year he noticed some growth in the centre like a “star”.
The fruit still has plenty of growing room with a Gippsland winter on its tail.
“I think it might have left its run a bit late,” Mr Lambrecht said.
Mr Lambrecht often shares his gardening trials and experiments with his daughter in Queensland and has a pumpkin patch extending about 30 metres, which he shares the produce from with other families.
“My father taught us as kids to always grow enough food for ourselves and friends,” he said.
His father, Christian, migrated to Australia from post-war Denmark, despite his six brothers capitalising on America’s gold rush.
Mr Lambrecht said his uncles were in some of the first “wagon-lots” who blazed across America on the Oregon Trail.
His father, however, moved to Australia and became a sugar beet farmer in Maffra.
“He was going to go to America and he decided that he would come to Australia instead … I don’t think he got on that well with his father,” Mr Lambrecht said.
“One of [his brothers] made a lot of money out of gold and he came back to Denmark and retired there. “They’re a pretty incredible family.”
Mr Lambrecht was one of 11 children.
“We had a big garden and we all had to help in the garden … we were on a dairy farm,” he said.
“He had plenty of labour, there’s no doubt about that.
“But it’s all gone now. It’s all sold up … the parents died and everyone moved away and that was it.”
