Cliff Maybery tends a vegetable garden at Eventide Homes and shares his produce with the retirement home’s kitchen.
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When Mr Maybery arrived at Eventide Homes about three years ago he knew he needed something to keep himself busy.
“I was only here, at the retirement home, a few days when I started watering pot plants,” he said.
Mr Maybery said he found the piece of land which had good soil and spoke to the “powers to be” at the time to let him start a vegetable garden.
“They were a little worried about snakes but in the end they let me start clearing the land,” he said.
With all the vegetables being chemical free – Cliff spends time digging with the shovel and chops up all the old vegetables back into the soil to make a compost.
“This is really good soil to grow vegetables. I plant different things all year round,” he said.
All of the garden is on the ground, with no built up beds. At 92, Cliff still works the soil and plants on his hands and knees.
“I broke my back about four years ago. I am lucky to still be able to be so active,” he said.
Cliff spends about one hour a day doing all kinds of jobs around the block.
“Over the years I have found all sorts of things in the soil, I even found a one cent coin when I started digging,” he said.
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