Gardening in Your Nineties: The Sequel to Sex in Your Seventies

Copyright © 2021 by Doreen Wendt-Weir.

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Rev. date: 06/04/2021

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1: Greens

The farm at Buccan

Chapter 2: Cucumbers

Hermann and Berthe

Chapter 3: Lettuce

Was it a snake bite?

Chapter 4: Chokos

The Cape York Trip

Chapter 5: Oranges

The Salt Box

Chapter 6: Citrus

Uncle Alec

Chapter 7: Passionfruit

Grandma Thompson

Chapter 8: Pineapples

The dances

Chapter 9: Pawpaws and Bananas

Mental arithmetic

Chapter 10: Mulberries

WWII, the US Army Post Office

Chapter 11: Garlic

Diphtheria

Chapter 12: Potatoes

Boston, Lincolnshire

Chapter 13: Pumpkins

The Blue Mountains

Chapter 14: Swede Turnips

Hitch-hiking

Chapter 15: Cabbages

Willi

Chapter 16: Snow Peas

Jochen and Werner

Chapter 17: Shallots

Uncle Kaye

Chapter 18: Green Beans

Obstetrics

Chapter 19: Zucchinis

Sex in Your Seventies

Chapter 20: Tomatoes

Guest speaking

Chapter 21: Root Vegetables

The cake shops

Chapter 22: Geraniums and Other Flowers

Barcaldine

Chapter 23: Roses

The Forest of Memories

Chapter 24: Trees

Television

Chapter 25: Dragon Fruit

Waltz with Me Darling Tonight

Grateful thanks are due to all who have shown an interest in

the writing of this book, and have assisted in any way,

especially my daughter Susan who has demonstrated

her superb skill as a proof-reader.

INTRODUCTION

I MADE LOVE FOR the last time when I was eighty-one. It was all perfectly lovely, because neither of us knew he was about to embark on an affair with another woman. So our long-lasting relationship ended. How could it survive?

Ours was a fairly typical household, with him seeing to the outside chores, while I dutifully and happily did whatever had to be done inside the home. It had worked really well, I thought, because he knew about gardening, and I had a fair idea about housework. At least I liked to cook and was quite good at it. But apart from the information that I found on the back of seed packets, I knew very little about gardening. He eventually left, of course. When I first twigged to the affair, most upset, I asked him when he was going to leave? ‘Leave?’ he asked, ‘What do you mean…leave?’ ‘In my world,’ I said, ‘when you share someone’s bed, it means you want to spend the rest of your life with that person.’ ‘Oh no,’ he countered ‘we were just supplying a need, that’s all.’

‘You must love her…’

‘No…it’s you that I love…’ He ended his new relationship but the damage was done.

The property belonged to me; there was no disputing that. I was just left with a lot of unaccustomed work to do...man’s work, about which I knew naught. I had a pleasant, country style house on over half an acre of level land that was planted with some five citrus trees and a mulberry bush, with a couple of ill-placed garden beds that were not all that productive. The house was placed at the rear of the block, and several gum trees thrived at the front, near the road.

It seemed natural that I turn my efforts to the garden. I was quite fit and could dig and hoe; the dancing ceased on his leaving, there was much less laundry and food preparation to be done, and I had more time on my hands...more of my own time, to do as I chose. And I had the loneliness, the sadness of his leaving, to cope with. I needed physical work! Gardening? It was the perfect solution, giving me exercise, enthusiasm and eventually nourishment. It was good for the environment and ultimately good for me.

But it does give you time to reflect...

CHAPTER ONE

Greens

The farm at Buccan

I HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN the importance of greens in our diet. I wanted to grow silverbeet. The season was right, it was late March in South East Queensland, and on the back of the seed packet it stated that the plants developed quite quickly...in well mulched soil. Mulch? I turned the first sod, and was disappointed to find a hard, dense red soil in claylike clumps, not looking at all like the well-mulched soil that I had envisaged. So began my mulch holes.

I had always had an appreciation of compost, for several reasons. First, it was a good means of getting rid of stuff; those vegetable peelings and scraps were full of fibre et al that must be good for the soil; as it broke down, it improved the consistency and quality of the latter no end; and it held the moisture. My garden had seen precious little of compost, because we used to have chooks. When you keep poultry, they get all the kitchen scraps and the weeds from the garden. You get the manure from the roost if someone is interested and energetic enough to gather it.

I dug my first hole. About fifty centimetres square, maybe thirty deep, pretty rough, all ready for the first lot of scraps from my kitchen. Initially I saved them in a large plastic pail with a lid, but it didn’t smell too good if left unemptied for more than a day. I knew newspaper was beneficial to the compost heap, and I recalled my mother’s habit of wrapping her peelings in newspaper, much like you would wrap fish and chips. I think Mum’s little parcels ended up in the garbage tin, but mine were definitely destined for the compost hole.

The parcels were layered in the hole with weeds and dried leaves, then soil from the exhumed heap. A sprinkle of lime and some blood and bone fertiliser, any dried leaves that were around, then the layers began again. Oh! It was such fun filling the hole with all this good stuff, knowing I was using it well, instead of filling the garbage bin with smelly rubbish. By the time I had filled it, the heap was much higher, finished off with a firm layer of soil, some dynamic lifter and a good scattering of cane mulch. This latter indicated that this heap was ready for planting. All I had to do was keep it moist.

I knew the heap would subside with ageing, but it was still a very presentable height. I left it for a couple of weeks before planting the silverbeet seeds. Because these are quite large as seeds go, I sowed them direct in the soil, carefully placing them where I wanted a good plant to thrive...plus a few extra in case some did not survive. Then my job was to keep the area moist and protected from marauding bandicoots and others. Because I am a hoarder, I always have on hand the innards from dishwashers, old fly screens etc., and these come in handy to cover my precious seeds and seedlings.

It was quite exciting to see the seedlings emerge, like chicks coming out of their shell. My little plants had all that nourishment from the improved soil, and grew rapidly with the help of regular watering. I try not to let the leaves get too large before picking, and have been told to always leave three on the stem. When my children were small, I devised a way of preparing spinach (or silverbeet) that they would enjoy. Here it is. It does not have a special name.

SILVERBEET AND EGGS ON TOAST

Wash and chop greens, then sauté in saucepan

with a little oil and garlic. Season.

Poach required eggs in salted water to your liking.

Toast wholemeal bread. Butter well and

spread thinly with Vegemite.

Cover toast liberally with greens, and top with one or two eggs.

I usually discard the pale stems of the silverbeet, as I have

read that they contain oxalic acid, which is not good for us.

*        *        *

I have often thought about the farm at Buccan where my parents toiled in the Great Depression. A dairy farm, Dad also grew small crops on the river flats. We had sorghum to feed the cows, turnips for the pigs, and potatoes for us. We shared the pumpkins with the pigs, but the chooks got all the corn. There was a noisy little hand-operated corn sheller in the big barn, and it was my job as an eight year old to wield the huge handle that, as it was so laboriously turned, shelled the cobs in the square wooden attached box.

We hardly ever had greens. Mum tried in vain to grow them, but the hares ate everything. So Dad built an enclosed area using stout saplings for posts. She probably dug fowl manure into the soil, but the drought beat Mum in the end. I remember her dismay when she realised she could not use any more of their precious water for the garden, as there was barely enough for our own use, which was rationed severely, with only one tub of water per week for the entire family to enjoy a bath, with the baby bathed first, and Dad the last to wash the week’s grime away.

I wonder why Mum had not known about compost. I am sure a compost hole would have provided some moisture for the striving greens. But then, I suppose the pigs and chooks needed all the scraps. It must have been disappointing for her.

Dad’s parents had retired to nearby Logan Village where they lived in a comfortable high set house on two acres next to the school, which their grandchildren attended. They had five granddaughters. Agnes, the oldest, only child of Archie and Louisa Ross, lived with Grandma during the school week. It was considered too far for her to walk alone from the Ross farm at the back of Buccan to the school at Logan Village.

My cousin Patricia’s parents, Ellen and Alf Holz split up when she was quite young. They lived in Brisbane, and Ellie could not cope with going to work and rearing a young child. So Pat was dispatched to Logan Village to join Agnes and her grandparents. She lived there full-time until she was nineteen, when she joined her mother who by then owned a country hotel. We loved Pat, and would look forward, as pre-schoolers, to visits when she would harness up her dog Lassie in the dog cart that Pannie (as she called our grandfather) had made for her, and take us for a run around Logan Village. Pannie had even made the harness and reins, which each child wielded as she sat alone in the cart, with Pat, who was older, running alongside. Such glee!

By the time I started school, aged four, Patricia was attending rural school in Beaudesert, learning dressmaking and cooking. Marty Doyle, the son of a family friend, had been living with us on the farm for a year by then, and he was nine when he took me to school on my first day, with my sister Joan who was six. The three of us walked the five kilometres to Logan Village, barefoot.

Marty, Doreen, Agatha and Joan at Buccan

Sometimes, at lunchtime, my sister Joan and I would scramble between the slip rails that led to Grandma’s, run past the barn and bails where Pannie milked his two cows, and hurry along the track that led to the house, being mindful of snakes, always. There, we would have a simple lunch of corned beef and potatoes, followed by a biscuit of our own choice, selected from the big square Arnott’s tin (with the picture of a parrot on the side) that was kept in the large pantry. A treat indeed, especially if there was an iced vo-vo or two still remaining in the tin!

Just occasionally, there would be a bowl of sliced cucumbers on the table, prepared in the German fashion, in Grandma’s way. She must have grown them in a moist, shady spot, perhaps fertilised with the manure from Pannie’s horse, ‘Dick’, and would have been well rewarded for her efforts. Pannie would have had a potato patch somewhere I am sure, as they ate a lot of them. He did have a duck pond with lots of ducks, and as I drive past their parched original two acres nowadays, I can see a green patch of grass in the indentation that used to be the duck pond.

Grand-dad, Agnes, Grandma, Patricia and Aunty Ellie at Logan Village

CHAPTER TWO

Cucumbers

Hermann and Berthe

I ONCE GREW CUCUMBERS in my greens patch, but later realised that they took over such a lot of ground that I could not grow as many valuable greens as I wished at that time. I now have an area about three metres square that is semi-rough, not cultivated like my other garden beds. In time it will be so I suppose, but for now I make do with compost holes in this area. I had three dug, and gradually filled them with the usual layers of weeds, dried leaves (not eucalypts) and kitchen waste and soil, adding as I deemed necessary, the blood and bone, chicken poo and perhaps a handful of lime and even a watering of trace element mix. It goes to your head sometimes, this compost making, like concocting a nutritious biscuit mix! And this is where I grow my cucumbers.

You can get your cucumbers going in pots in your green house if you like. I seem to do all right by planting three seeds in each heap and hoping for the best. When the plants get to about twenty centimetres long, I pinch out the tip of some to encourage branching. If it suits, I might put up a trellis, as most cucumbers love to climb. If left to trail along the ground, it is important to put down some sugar cane mulch as ground cover. Depending on the type you have planted, they can be harvested at different lengths. Just don’t let them get too mature!

GRANDMA’S CUCUMBER RELISH

Take several cucumbers of the common-or-garden

variety, not too mature, and peel thinly.

Slice in the usual way and put in a bowl. Sprinkle well with

salt, about a dessertspoonful. Leave for several hours, turning

occasionally. A lot of fluid will result. Grandma said this is the

fluid that gives you indigestion when you eat cucumbers!

Throw away this fluid, and drain the rest.

Finally, she would wring out what was left with

her bare hands. Put into a smaller bowl.

Add a large teaspoonful of sugar or substitute, some

pepper and enough cider vinegar to cover. This cucumber

relish will keep in the refrigerator for a week or so, and is

delicious with cold (or hot) cooked corned meat, served

with hot boiled potatoes. Real old German fare.

My mother would always vertically score the sides of

the uncut, unpeeled cucumber with a dinner fork,

thus making an attractive slice when cut.

I was almost eight when my younger sister was born. Three girls. Perhaps at this stage my father thought of leaving the farm. Sure, Marty had insisted on coming to live with us when he was eight. He had been like a son for the three years that he was there, but they always knew his mother in Ipswich missed him terribly, and yearned for his return despite there being seven other children in the crowded Doyle household. When Marty was eleven, we made the sad journey to Ipswich that took him home. I remember Mum and Aunty Greta (as we called Marty’s mother) preparing the roast dinner for twelve of us in the small kitchen in their cottage in Darling Street. They had a good sized rib roast sizzling in the oven of the wood stove, plus roast potato, pumpkin and sweet potato.

They repaired to the backyard and picked young chokos that were dangling on the fence. Then they gathered a basketful of Poor Man’s Beans that were growing over the old shed. These tough beans must be strung and sliced thinly, boiled with a pinch of baking soda, drained, and pepper, salt and butter added. We ate everything on our plates, and why not? It was delicious.

Before we left the Doyle household that day, we were all invited (forced…) to bend our backs and go under the rather low house to see the youngest son’s artwork that he had painted on the underside of the floor. In oils, the paintings were very good and realistic, anyone could see that, and his parents were very proud of D’Arcy, the budding artist who would go on to become world famous. In those depression days, however, there was no spare money for canvasses or even boards. He painted on whatever space was available, in this case the underside of the pine floor in Darling Street.

Dad felt duty bound to continue farming at Buccan. Grandma’s parents had emigrated from Schleswig-Holstein in Germany in 1884. A disastrous diphtheria plague had struck the country nine years earlier, killing three of their children in a month...the baby, the toddler and their oldest, a