The Fertile Acre

One Couple Tells How A Bit Of Hard Work Turned Ordinary Soil Into A Productive Fruit And Vegetable Garden

- Jana Holmer

In the township of Lethbridge, northwest of Geelong on the Midland Highway, is Bert and Sue Moritz’ fi veacre property, of which a full acre is given over to vegetables. Sue, a retired nurse, and Bert, a former primary school teacher, were both born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands but have spent most of their lives in this area of Victoria.

Bert hails from rural Lara, east of Lethbridge, and got interested in gardening when he was “knee-high to a grasshopper”. A family friend had a mini-market and used to discard carrots that were too long or skinny. “Why don’t you replant them?” Bert asked. Too many of them, was the reply. Besides, they didn’t sell.

So Bert collected the rejected carrots, planted them in his own yard and they fl ourished. “That was 60 years ago,” he smiles. “Now they sell thin carrots.” He went on to work at Lara Plant Farm before becoming a teacher.

Sue grew up not far away in Bacchus Marsh Road where her parents grew beans and rhubarb. One of her grandparents ran a fruit and vegetable store in Holland but she can’t recall any other details.

When the couple moved to Lethbridge intent on growing fruit and vegies, they found the ground hard and compacted by the horses the former owner kept.

“We had to put in loads of mushroom compost and horse poo,” says Sue.

“Rice hulls are good for soil conditioning — you dig them into the ground in preparation for growing vegetables.

“The pear tree was the fi rst tree we planted on the property.”

They also installed a tap and the fi rst of six water tanks, rotary-hoed the soil, put down mulch and planted. “Everything grows on fl at land,” says Sue.

IN A COUNTRY GARDEN