Meeting Violet

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strawberry seedling


Violet is an elderly Italian lady who lives in the house that backs onto our (new) red house. Having admired the fruit trees that I can see in her garden, I poked my head over the fence this afternoon and introduced myself.

When I told Violet that we moved here from Melbourne she said that she likes Melbourne: she visited there in 1953 just after she got married.

Violet told me that she has lived in her house for over 50 years. She used to be great friends with the lady who lived in my house and they had a gate between their homes so they could pop in and out and visit each other. However, the next owners of my house didn't like the gate and put up the high metal fence that is there now.

Many years ago my own garden was full of fruit trees, Violet says. There were figs and olives, oranges and plums, but they were mostly cut down when the house was renovated and the garden professionally landscaped. When I told her that I was hoping to plant some more fruit trees she smiled.

Violet's garden is the kind that we expect from the older generation of Italian migrants, with many fruit trees and a large vegetable patch. She said she has plums for jam and green apples for apple cake.

Sadly, one of her plum trees died over the summer. Violet explained that she and her husband are pensioners and can no longer afford the water needed to keep her trees alive. They have a water tank but it was empty long before our hot summer ended.

According to Violet they once had a much larger vegetable garden but her husband can no longer do the work required. Even so, their vegetable patch is much bigger than most that I have seen.

It is a great tragedy that folk like Violet and her husband cannot afford to water trees that they have nurtured for over 50 years. At a time when we are being encouraged to cut our food miles and live sustainably gardens such as theirs should be encouraged.

So much seems to have been lost in Violet's lifetime: the kind of neighbourliness that meant you could drop in on a friend any time without an invitation; the kind of thriftiness that quietly grew as much as possible at home and that tended the earth with love so that it would provide year after year.

I hope that we can all make small steps to ensure that that world is not lost forever.