As I remember it, my childhood almost five decades ago was closely interwoven with gardening experiences. Very early on I learned that, in our family at least, gardening success meant wasting nothing; and so it was that everything organic, everything that had once been connected with the earth, eventually went back to its place of origin.
My father was, in fact, the actual gardener, but by default, we were all very much involved in the various duties and followed his example without question. H e was sun-browned, stooped from constant bending to the soil he loved, quietly spoken. When he did speak, it was well-worth listening.
We always had what we called "the hole" somewhere out in the back garden. Invariably, it had been dug straight-sided and deep by my father, and was located in some currently unplanted spot that was discreetly out of sight so as to maintain the orderly appearance of his neat rows of plants. Into this void went vegetable peelings, crushed eggshells, sawdust, ashes from the wood-fire, hair from the dog, feathers from the plucked fowl that was roasted for Sunday dinner and anything else that would decompose over time. In around a week, the waste would be covered over and we would know that the worms would begin to do their part. This all led to a useful source of pocket-money for us children, because our worms were always the biggest, the fattest and the most luscious in the neighbourhood and in great demand by our fishing friends.
The next day, "the hole" would be located in a new place. We would have to ask for directions when emptying the kitchen scraps for the first time. We had to listen carefully because the vegetable garden was a complex place, then we were off, down past the rhubarb, between the asparagus rows, under the passionfruit arch, left at the parsnip patch and there, between the spreading potatoes and the neat rows of turnips, the new dumping place would be discovered.
"Never put a crop in the same bed two years running," explained my father as his planting continued, so, when sent out back to pull some tender carrots or snap off the young silver beet leaves for the next meal, we would have to stop and look around, because they were surely not in the place where they had been when we had picked them during the previous season.
After the rain, and most often at nightfall, we were sent out into the garden with a torch and a bucket half-filled with water. In the narrow beam of light, we would snatch up the snails that had rapturously set out in search of a meal. We had to harden our hearts as the poor things bobbed around in the water, seeming to know their fate was to be eventual drowning. Next morning, the water was poured off into "the hole" and the still fresh crustaceans were thrown into the chook pen, to the delight of the dozen or so layers which were always housed there.
Almost all bugs, beetles and garden pests of any description were gathered and fed to the hens, the exception being the harlequin bugs with their bright pattern and foul odour which must have tasted as bad as they smelt because the birds would not touch them. These insects were dropped into half a bucket of very hot water where they continued to secrete some disgustingly putrid stuff until they succumbed and drowned. Collecting them was a job we hated because our fingers would reek for hours no matter how we scrubbed them. Later, the bucket would be emptied into "the hole" and a scoop of soil tossed over to cover the stench and the sight of the detested pests.
Two or three plants from each vegetable crop were always allowed to form seed. The pods and seed heads were carefully watched until ready to burst and scatter. Gently they would be detached, stored in brown paper bags, or sometimes wrapped in cloth pockets, labelled and stored on shelves in the woodshed for the following season's planting. Swapping with neighbours was a fine way to extend the range of varieties and experiment to find favourites.
When we had a vegetable and fruit surplus, we would often set up a small table in the street in front of our picket fence. A basket of lemons would stand beside small bundles of beets and carrot thinnings, or whatever we had produced that was more than we could eat or bottle or dry. Sometimes I would pick small bunches of lavender and tie them with narrow purple ribbon. Ladies passing on foot and heading for the shops with wicker baskets on their arms would give us coins for whatever they fancied and promise to pick up their purchases on their return trip. Invariably, we sold out quickly and sometimes we were allowed to head to the shops ourselves to purchase that rare treat an icecream cone.
We did not freeze any produce from our vegetable garden. Even if we had known then that this was possible, our simple refrigerator did not have the capacity to hold more than a few trays of ice-cubes.
Anyway, my father would have declared firmly, "Nothing beats a freshly-picked vegetable from your own garden" and we would have agreed with him.
Gardening was simple then, as our lifestyle was too. Perhaps we all had more time to do those down-to-earth, precious things and to enjoy the fruits of our labour, so to speak.
But, even in these sophisticated days of compost tumblers, mulching, insecticides and frozen vegetables, my father's gentle words sound in my head each time I go into my vegetable garden, and I know that his reasoning is as logical and ecological today as it was when I was a child.