Tropical hot spot in Albion Park

BRENDAN CRABB

ONE couple have brought a touch of the tropics to their Albion Park Rail home.

Three and a half years ago, Bill and Dorothy Steele made the bold move of attempting to grow a pineapple in their back garden.

So obviously bold, because the fruit is primarily grown in tropical climates, that many friends and family thought that doing so was nigh on impossible.

“I bought it from a market at Warilla because I thought it’d make an attractive plant for the garden,” Dorothy said. “People don’t believe it until they see it.”

“We wanted a challenge to see if we could actually do it,” her husband Bill said.

However, the Steeles have now proved the doubters wrong, by successfully growing a large, delicious pineapple. The circum- erence of the fruit is 360mm, with a height of 300mm.

There are also two other pineapples beginning to come to life in their garden; one has to wonder how the pair managed not only to grow a pineapple, but also such an impressive one?

“I cut the top off the pineapple, put in some hormone powder and placed it in the pot,” Dorothy explained. “At one stage it was interfering with Bill’s vegie garden because of its spikes, so we moved it behind the pool fence and one day Bill spotted it really doing well, so we brought it out and put it in the sunlight.

“I also saw a gardening show where they suggested you put a stone in the centre, and after I did that it started growing even better,” she added. And three and a half years later it has now been picked and sampled.

So, do the Steeles have plans to keep on growing them? “We’ll be putting some more in and giving it another go,” Dorothy assured us.