(TINO) There's an old saying that life begins the day that you start a garden.
Well today I'm meeting someone whose life in her garden has been ticking along for almost a century.
(knocks)
(KATHLEEN) Hello!
Gday Kathleen, how ya going?
I'm doing very well, and you?
It's lovely to see you this morning.
Ah, it's a lovely morning.
Have you come to see my garden?
Yes, and yourself as well. (laughs)
Oh that's so kind of you.
Can I take your arm?
Yes you can!
Let's go.
Now you never ask a lady her age,
but a little bird tells me that Kathleen Golder is just four months shy of her hundredth birthday
and she's as busy in the garden as ever.
So Kathleen has gardening been good for you?
It's kept me
healthy
for one thing.
It's kept me active.
It's kept me interested
in other people and what they grow
and what I can learn... still learn today.
I can learn so much
so it's meant to everything.
It's meant my food...
It's everything! Can you see that?
Most definitely!
I was born in the head gardeners Peckforton Castle garden
In the cottage there.
But the cottage for the head garden was a beautiful building.
So you come from a long line of gardening stock?
I... we do, well cos that's what we were in those days.
If you go back 100 years, we were peasants!
We had no television,
we had no computers,
we had the garden.
And a dog and a cat if you wanted them... but that's all!
Kathleen and her late husband Peter first settled in Queensland,
moving to Tasmania in the early 1980s
and then to this house in south Hobart eighteen years ago.
Well... while that I'm here today...
Yes...
Can I give you a hand with anything in your garden?
Well... ah
Yes
Can I plant up some seedlings?
Come and see... yes, we can do that.
Are we up there?
Grand, let's have a go.
Can I take your arm?
I would be honoured...
Oop... sorry!
(laughs) Sorry!
(both laughing)
We'll have to train you.
(more laughing) I'm off balance!
(giggling)
I'm leading you up the garden path!
Oh wow, the potting shed!
Yes
Grand!
Well... look at all that.
Well Kathleen we've got everything we need here.
Good! Where do we start?
Well... leafy greens are always good - it's up to you.
My lettuce have been left in the pot too long, I was away last week.
They should have been put out...
I cut them off there
with a pair of scissors and then I just plant them out
But you leave that central leaf in...
Oh yes.
It just gives them that little bit of impetus to shoot.
Yes that's right.
Well we've got quite a bit of lattice over there, what are we gonna plant to climb up that?
Oh yes! They're behind me... look.
Ah yeah
Ah nice!
Yeah
So these are from a punnet... you've planted them up in to these pots?
Ah yes.
Yes, let's pop them in. There's quite a few there.
I love my... my bed runners.
Pleasure
Now it tips...it tips backwards...
You good?
How's that? You happy?
Excellent!
Great, fantastic!
I'm gonna use your little baby shovel.
Isn't that a little beauty!
It's an excellent one.
Yeah
So straight in ok?
In she goes! My Tino beans!
(laughs)
Don't you break them!
Oh, no no no. They're lovely healthy plants.
Tell you what I cross and bless them - my way!
You must have done a bit of gardening before you came here?
Yeah, I've done a bit, but I'm always learning.
I never stop learning!
Yeah
That's the beauty of gardening, you just never stop.
Now just to finish off by giving the plant some food
Kathleen's special recipe
now you can find this on the website
Kathleen, how much do I put on?
A nice handful.
Ok, that's it... and just put a bit of soil on top of it...
Just so...
Mix it in lightly...
Tickle it in?
That's it, that's it! That'll do, lovely.
Then I'll water it in, in the evening.
Kathleen's daughter Jane remembers growing up with a garden
When they first got here, what was here?
There was a lot of lawn
and just a few trees around.
Well in no time,
ah, the lawns were up
um, the garden beds were in
and the veggies were planted
and within a few months
I was just so impressed about what my father and my mother had done,
I wrote a letter to Peter Cundall
and in no time the cameras came along and filmed the garden.
I'm Kathleen Golder.
For goodness sake, I'm 81.
I've come to South Hobart with some of my family around me.
It's just great to be here.
I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
Now you're vegetarian...you always have been?
Yes I have.
Always have been.
So growing your own vegetables has been vitally important for you.
Oh, yes.
You don't need
to kill an animal when there's so much of everything else!
It's all there for you.
And you help out quite a bit don't you?
Oh yes, I help out.
Um, but... but I must say, under strict supervision.
There's parsley going to seed...
if you've got patience we can let that grow... I want to harvest some of the seed.
So producing your own food's important, but what about the actual art of gardening?
The.. the process of it?
Is that something you really enjoy?
I love, um, sowing the seeds...
They're up there, in my little greenhouse...
from a little bit of a dried-up old thing... a plant comes
It's still a miracle and always will be, don't you think?
Most definitely, that's a lovely way of putting it.
(laughs)
You agree with me?
(both laugh)
That's lovely!