Ruby Tuesday – Garden Flashback

Since Jeff and I have been a bit pathetic with colds this last week, we have been staying away from Ruby, since she is under all this pressure not to “fall off the twig” before we can celebrate her 100th birthday later in the year – so why make life harder by sharing colds around?? 🙂

So I will write up a little look over Ruby’s garden from a season or so ago, which some of the One Hundred Dollars a Month  readers will possibly be familiar with.

Its only been the last couple of seasons that Ruby has enlisted me as “Garden Staff” to help a bit with the heavier digging around the place – I guess when you are in your late 90’s its ok to call in the cavalry. Not that she slacks off! Still a familiar site to see her in the garden, perched on a milk crate digging up weeds.

 

Ruby’s soil is a dark sandy soil. Quite a lot different to our red soil just up the road. It requires a bit more work, and a bit more water. As you can see, she has several patches that she rotates her vegetables around each season. At the beginning of the season she maps out where each of her vegetable plots will be, and we try to get the peas in early enough to make sure there are fresh ones on the table for Christmas dinner!

Its a massively productive plot and you would think she was growing food for an army! Very little goes to waste. Food is stored and preserved and given away – and of course eaten!

Even the weird shaped vegies go in the pot!

Plenty of potatoes

Even tho Ruby’s eyesight has almost failed her, she knows her way around well enough to go up into the garden to pick something for lunch and then cook it up. Main meals are in the middle of the day and dinner is usually a sandwich

And oh, can that woman bake a turkey! Yum!! You can float on the aroma from the front gate!

The hothouse is a really important part of Ruby’s garden. She can get her early tomatoes, lettuce and cucumber on the go in here.

I discovered that in years gone by, she has manually taken out last seasons dirt, and wheelbarrowed in new soil from somewhere else in the garden so it didn’t get too stale! Wow!

This season just gone, Jeff and I got a trailer load of mushroom compost and dug it right in – and didn’t her hothouse go mad! She was pretty proud of the massive crop of early tomatoes that just kept on growing!

I have totally given up on trying to beat her with the first ripe tomato of the season!

Beans & peas of various sorts are a staple here too, so each season we get out the rebar, old clothes horses and anything else handy for climbing vegetables and set it all up. Usually before I can get back, Ruby has it all fertilised and planted!!

Ruby also has a beautiful variety of flowers, flowering trees and shrubs all through her garden. No matter the season, there is usually something pretty to look at that is attracting the bees

Its a space that gives Ruby an independent lifestyle as much as she can and a reason to get ‘up and doing’ in the morning.

 

Each week I will try to share a gem from this brilliant tatty old diary-recipe book!

PLUM WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE

This is one of my favourite sauces to come out of Ruby’s cookbook.

She has a beautiful dark plum tree up the back which generally produces a ton of fruit.

I enjoy using Worcestershire sauce in a lot of my dishes, is an ingredient in my BBQ sauce recipe and it makes home made rissoles/hamburgers fabulous!!

You need a really big pot

3lb dark plums

3lb white sugar

2lb Brown sugar

3 tins of treacle (approx. 850gm tins each)

7 pints vinegar

1/2 lb garlic

1oz white pepper

1oz allspice

1oz whole cloves ( I use ground)

1/4oz cayenne pepper

1/2oz ground ginger

2 tablespoons salt

Put all ingredients into the pot and cook until stone leave the plums.

Strain out stones & skin and reboil for about an hour. Bottle up.

This will last you a LONG time! So its worth the effort.

Once you are done, copy Ruby and have a little rest!

Cheers