RIGHT AFTER having breakfast and taking her morning bath, Carmen Murray puts on a hat, pushes her feet into her shoes and heads into her yard to take care of her kitchen garden and the “few livestock” around.Murray has maintained this routine since she retired ten years ago.
And she does it because, she says, gardening is good exercise, which has the added benefits of providing fresh vegetables to eat and cutting down on her food bill.
This Foster Lodge, St George resident, who entered the teaching profession as a 20-year-old and stayed for 40 years, told the MIDWEEK NATION that her garden was her new classroom.
“I was raised in Mount, St George. My father was a plantation worker and my mother was a housewife. When I was a child growing up, we had animals around the house and I, along with my three siblings, had to help take care of them. We had sheep, goats, ducks and rabbits . . . .
“When I started to work and I had my own home, I decided to do a flower garden and a little kitchen garden because I felt it was best to grow your own herbs so that when you are cooking you can just step outside and pick a piece of thyme. After I retired, I decided to go into it fully.”
