Friends of Merri Creek have been conducting oral history interviews with residents who have lived on the Creek before 1970. The interviews form the Merri Creek Oral History Project.
This is an interview with Joe Garita who worked his market garden beside the Merri Creek in Harding Street Coburg for many years. Also contributing is Joe’s wife Jean Garita. (GG)
The interviewer is Des Shiel (DS). The date is 11 July 2012. The interview took place in Joe’s house in Harding Street Coburg.
This is an edited transcription of the interview.
DS: Joe, could I start with getting some of your personal background? When and where were you born?
JG: I was born in 1925 in Italy.
DS: And when did you migrate?
JG: 1937 I came here with Mum. My father was here 11 years before.
DS: What part of Italy did your family come from?
JG: We came from a town called Altomont. In the southern part of Italy.
DS: And what sort of work did your family do in Italy ?
JG: Oh, on the land.
DS: And when you came to Australia where did your family settle?
JG: Well Dad was in Gippsland in Lakes Entrance. And then in a place called Nungurner, in Kalimna West. And when we immigrated here we went there where Dad lived and we stayed there for about 8 years. Really there wasn’t much in those days, things were very tight there was no work and so on. So I said if we can go somewhere else we’ll go. I came to Melbourne, first I came here in ’42 because some of Dad’s and Mum’s best friends were living in Moreland Road. And then of course you know, being a young bloke I went around the Creek here and there. But I didn’t know this place in Harding Street. It only came about because then the next time I came it was 1945. And then I looked at The Argus on a Saturday morning, there it was. A going concern, 350 quid. (laughs). So straightaway I asked Mr. Rossin let’s go and see this man, Jimmy Loch, he was Chinese. His father was Chinese, his mother was Australian. They were all born here. Then arrangements were made, and it becomes ours, and we have been here ever since.
DS: So that was 1945 when you took over the garden?
JG: Yes.
DS: So you are living in Coburg , you meet Jean.
GG: Yes, married in ’55.
JG: We met in ’54.
DS: Raised the family?
JG: Yes we did .
GG: Yes we certainly did, we had 4 sons and 3 daughters.
DS: So your market garden was able to support a large family like that?
JG: Well, gardening work you know it’s hard, you have to be at it all the time. Vegetables are like babies, you’ve got to attend to them all the time.
DS: What was the size of the garden?
JG: It wasn’t quite 5 acres , it was 4 acres, 2 roods and so many perches in those days.
DS: And did the garden include where those town houses are now?
JG: Yes, that was mine.
DS: So you owned from the Creek….
JG: Yes, the boundary was the daughter’s house which is next door, from there to all along the Creek.
DS: So in 1945 was the place surrounded by houses then ?
JG : Oh, there was quite a few houses, there was quite a few.
DS: What is the soil like on the Creek?
JG: Very fertile. Low lying areas are always good, good soil, it was always subject to flooding, that was the worst part. We managed.
DS: What about your fertilizer?
JG: Well I didn’t use much artificial, but I did use some artificial of course. Mainly the compost like fowl manure and horse manure, as much as I could get.
DS: What did you mainly grow and what was the most successful?
JG: Well look, with vegetables like everything else are changing from peas and beans and tomatoes. They were the main crops in those days, silver beet and cauliflowers. It wasn’t enough, I did grow a few cabbages but then when immigration started different things came on the market and you had to follow. So now there are so many new varieties that I don’t know about. I know most of them, but I didn’t grow them all. CERES is doing that now.
DS: What is CERES growing that you didn’t grow?
JG: Oh, new varieties, mainly lettuce, cos lettuce, all different kinds of other vegetables.
DS: Well, how did you water?
JG: With the mains water. I didn’t pump from the Creek at all. It could have been done, but in the beginning it was not too bad, but later on it became very polluted . You couldn’t grow vegetables with it.
GG: It tainted the vegetables. In the second year after they opened up the Coburg pool ,we had crops here and at that point Joe was also growing vegetables at the bottom of Grant Street , which is the next street up, and he had eggplants, tomatoes and chillies. All the things that the Italians in the area wanted , and unfortunately the chloride got into the water. They were using Creek water there, it got into the vegetables and ruined quite a few crops. We couldn’t sell them, everything tasted like chloride.
JG: That’s when they started the Coburg Baths.
DS: Now the work force on your gardens, just you and your kids or Gina?
GG: I didn’t do much in the garden, Mum and Dad did quite a lot in the early days. Mum and Dad both worked out there. We also had a little shop on the side of the garage, so that was the second source of our income. He would go to the market and sell all of his goods, he would bring back things he hadn’t grown himself, like beans at times , we had quite a few things like silver beet we always had. Things like potatoes and pumpkin and things that needed big areas, he would bring back from the market. We had our little shop then with all our customers. We only had vegetables, never fruit.
JG: Oh yes we ran it for many years.
GG: Well it was already and up and going by 1955. It didn’t get closed down till the units were built out there in ’89.
DS: Did you have any other labour?
JG: Oh yes, quite a few. Mainly relatives and friends.
GG: A lot of people came out from the same town as Joe, the man would come out first and this house was always Zia Maria which was Aunty Mary. She would be the one who looked after everybody.
JG: They used to call everybody Uncle Lou and Aunty Mary. (laughs). Well they had nowhere to go, you know, and of a weekend…
GG: As I said, a few of them were first and second cousins, a few were just friends they grew up with and they would come and do a few hours work and go home with a car load of vegies.
JG: They were volunteers.
GG: They would come on a Saturday afternoon or a Sunday. They would often go and help Joe collect the poultry manure from the little guy who was on the corner of Bell Street or the Horders or Gilmore’s dairies. One was just here off Harding Street the other one was at Rennie Street, because in those days it was horse and cart delivery.
DS: So did you have much machinery ?
JG: At first I had the horses, later on I bought one tractor and then I bought another one.
GG: He bought himself an old Ferguson.
JG: That Ferguson stayed with me till a couple of years ago.
DS: Those little grey Fergies last forever don’t they?
GG: Yes that’s the one. Then he bought a green John Deere.
JG: It’s still there, the John Deere is still there. I sold it to CERES.
DS: You took your produce to the market?
JG: Yes to Victoria Market. Then it went to Footscray in ’65 or ’66.
DS: And how many days did you go to the market?
JG: Oh, once or twice a week. Sometimes three times depending on the produce.
GG: Mainly it was Tuesdays and Fridays, or Mondays and Fridays.
DS: What time did you set off for the market?
JG: I always got up about half past three, because I was near but people, you know, from the country, they came early ,they would get there at twelve o’clock. They would leave home at eight or nine and get there at twelve o’clock and stay till the market opened at four o’clock. Oh yeah, it’s not an easy life.
DS: You mentioned before about problems with the floods, but were there problems with pests or any animals, foxes ?
JG: Well foxes will only go for chooks. I had a few fowls for many years until we built, then we had to get rid of them. Not really , there was more vandals with people (laughs)
GG: Two-legged pests especially school holiday time. The kids would sit on the bridge and pelt them with rocks!
JG: Regarding the floods, when I took over the land there were quite a few vegetables growing then. You know he (Jimmy Loch) left it full. That could have made a good return for my money. And I was here by myself for about six weeks, there was only a dwelling here. There was cabbages and silver beet, there was lettuce, quite a few vegetables. And on 25th of May 1946, a downpour came, about two and a half inches of rain, and all of a sudden I got a shock. Everything was flooded. The Creek came up because in those days there was not pollution but too much growth, there were willow trees and aniseed, it was a jungle along the Creek. You should have seen the aniseed. From Nicholson Street to the corner of Cole Crescent was unmade, the people who were here then didn’t want it made, so the Council didn’t do it. So when our first child came along which was twins, there was a bit of a track, but the pram used to get bogged. So I went to the Council and complained about how the track was. Within three months they sent letters that they were going to make the road, that was good. But people still didn’t want to do it. I said look, as far as I’m concerned I’m ready to go, I want a road. So it was made. In ’61!
GG: All the roads around us were made, except this little bit which wasn’t.
DS: We all hear about the 1974 floods, but there were fairly frequent floods, weren’t there?
JG: There were, the garden at the bottom there was so low, there was a big bend below the swing bridge which after the ’74 floods, the Board of Works came and excavated to make it more even. But, still because it banks up and there it is very low and it overflows. Not as dangerous as it used to be. The weather is now, we get more rain, but not the last ten years, but the last two years it’s been wet.
DS: Can you describe where the water went in the 1974 flood?
JG: The houses were flooded. Edna Grove and houses further down were all flooded. Before then there was another one in 1934 , I don’t think there were any houses in ’34. All along Edna Grove and Merribell Avenue were built after 1934, probably ’36 or ’37 .
GG: I had a customer who was called Mrs. Marks and when I came here as a young bride, she used to say to me ” You’ve come to Coburg as a bride just like me. My house was the only house in Merribell Avenue. Every morning the cows used to come and wake me up.” That was when she was a bride, when she welcomed me she would have been at least sixty because her daughter was at least forty-five. She used to say she was the only house, and then there was the big manor house on the Preston hill, and the guy who lived there owned the whole area, but perhaps not the market garden.
JG: Have you read the history: ” Coburg, Between Two Creeks”?
DS: The manor house you talk about, what was that?
GG: Well I don’t know who the people were.
JG: I think it belonged to McKay’s dairies. They had land all along to Coburg Lake where they ran their cows. All along Edgar’s Creek and that area.
DS: You mentioned there were a number of market gardens along the Creek. Can you tell us where the main ones were? We are talking now about the area along the Creek between Mahoneys Road and Blythe Street?
JG: One was where Pipeworks is now. Another two were along Mahoneys Road, another one was just past Links Road on the side of the Creek it was 15-20 acres, it was there for a few years. Another one near the Coburg Lake where the swimming pool is now. Then there was a poultry farm on the corner of Bell Street and Willow Street. Then there was me in Harding Street. Tate Reserve was another garden which we ran for a few years in the end. Before us it was Chinese. Then on Robinson and Capp Reserves , there were three little market gardens there. Then near the Normanby- Moreland Road, on the Northcote side there was another garden for a few years, but then when they straightened the Creek they had to go. It became Northcote Golf Course. Then of course comes CERES, then after CERES there was another little patch of land that was run by private people. Now, at the end of Albion Street there used to be a brick kiln, was there for many years during the sixties. After that they were gone, became a park. I think that’s all. Oh no, there was another one in Rennie Street.
DS: Did these gardens vary in size, or round about the same acreage?
JG: No different acreages, some were ten acres, some were five. Some were smaller, Tate Reserve now it was between six or eight acres. Robinson Reserve and Capp Reserve were a bigger area, about ten, Rennie Street was about ten acres at the start. It wasn’t far short because they’ve built on it now.
DS: Were the gardens mainly Chinese?
JG: In the beginning they were mainly Chinese but after the war, no. Coburg Lake was Chinese, Tate Reserve, not Rennie Street.
DS: Did you have much to do with the other growers?
JG: No, no, not really, no. Because some of them came and after a few years they were gone. In Rennie Street as far back as 1942 Italians were there, Mario and his brother. I met them in the forties, they were there for twenty years after, then they were gone.
DS: You mentioned about straightening the Creek at the Northcote Golf Course, when was that done? What was the vegetation like on the Golf Course in those days?
GG: On the Coburg side before you got there was Container Ltd., it was still there till not long ago, there was the tin place where they made all the cans. On the other side, I’m not quite sure what was there. I think it was just open land, wasn’t it?
JG: It was. I only saw these blokes not too long because they only stayed a few years. They were growing vegetables there. This was only a temporary market garden, all the rest were there for quite a few years. Quite a few years, but all the others were like me, I was the last one.
DS: Could we now turn to the Creek itself. I’d like to get an idea of what the Creek and its surrounds were like. For example if you stood on the swing bridge in the ’40’s and ’50’s and looked both up and down, what was the vegetation and what did the Creek look like?
JG: A lot of willow trees and a lot of aniseed. There was few other trees, there were wattles, a few wattle trees but not many. It was a mixture but it was really a jungle in those days. The Creek was full of weeds. Although I must say that when I first came here if it flooded it was dirty, the water, but in the summer months it was clear. There was platypus, there was eels, fish in abundance and frogs. The pond here was like a little lake because there was a sharp bend and that became a pond, and it was very deep. Anyhow, I used to remember kids fishing for eels in the nigh , but then as the factories came along in North Coburg it became very polluted. But even people used to dump stuff in there, cars, even cars. One day I was working there and I saw a few kids that had a car, all of a sudden they let the brake go and it fell into the Creek. What can you do sometimes! Anyhow the police came, then they took it out. There were quite a few old cars along the Creek but it became a rubbish dump, oh yeah, for a few years, until about 1961 when they made this road. On the Kendall Street side, on the Preston side the road was also not made. The contractors had to deal with some big stones, it’s stone country along this line. Mr Trevaskis was a builder he used to live along Cole Crescent, he was telling me if you go to the quarry where CERES is now, all along this strip was all stone. And when we built here, there were quite a few big stones.When we made the road in front of the dwelling where we lived in the early days, there was a stone as big as this room. So I got them to blow it up with dynamite which was good, oh yeah! Anyhow to tell the story about when they were building the bridge, they dumped all the stone and they used to fall into the Creek. Some were left on the edge but some fell into the Creek.
At that particular time I had a cold and I was in bed, it was when Anthony was born, so I called the Preston Council, they wouldn’t answer. They said we’ll ring you. I complained to them. Then I rang the Coburg Council , they said we can’t interfere in other Councils. When I got better a few days after, I went in town to the Board of Works and complained there too, not only for there but for the whole area of the Creek. So anyway I spoke to one of the engineers there , Mr Shephard, a long talk, told him what happened. Oh, they shouldn’t have done that he said, we’ll send someone along. And he did come, made the contractor pull the stones up. So then they promised to do this and that, they came once or twice, but that was the end (laughs). Until 1965 when they did the sewerage, and now they have done another one. In those days things were different, this time they didn’t interfere with anybody. One opening was at De Chene Reserve and another at the end of Bell Street. They didn’t interfere this time, they were good.
That time in ’64/’65, not that they did a lot of damage but we had the garden too,we were running the garden in Tate Reserve, and they made a mess. But anyhow,what happened they had to dig 42 feet underground, and this particular time there was only one man, and what happened was something exploded and he got drowned. So the coroner came. In the meantime I had a petition to the Council. I went and collected about 300 signatures ,Coburg, Preston, Thornbury. But the Council, whenever I wrote to them they couldn’t be bothered. They said they had no money and that belonged to the Board of Works to look after the Creek. So they find excuses, but after that Mr. Acheson was Mayor of Coburg and he pushed a little bit which helped, I suppose it helped. And then the whole committee from the Board of Works and the Council they came and inspected From then on, even Mr. Robinson, the head man of the Board of Works was there. So from then on they got interested and started to improve the Creek. But it wasn’t until after the floods in ’74 that they really started to do it properly. Then they started to do the track , the pathway, but it wasn’t concrete then, just with bark .
DS: Could you get along the Creek, were there rough tracks in the ’50s and’ 60s through the aniseed down to Tate Reserve?
JG: The track was so bad they went along the road.
DS: Kids played around the Creek, but did adults have much to do with it?
JG: Oh yeah.
GG: But our kids didn’t play there.
JG: Our kids they didn’t go near the Creek. I don’t know why, but ….
GG: Because there was a time when some little kids from the school from the State School, they went down during the school holidays and a little girl drowned or a little boy.
JG: No there were two girls, there were quite a few drownings in the Creek I remember.
GG: I only remember that one and that was when my twins and Anthony………
JG: It was a big pond it was very deep there.
GG: They were going to find tadpoles so the story was.
JG: No, what happened was the girls from the school here, they were near the Creek and one slipped, the other tried to drag her up and they both finished in the water and got drowned.
GG: In about ’63 or ’64 wasn’t it? That was when the twins and Anthony were little.
DS: What do you mean by the pond?
JG: Below the swing bridge, now it’s not as bad, even as deep, deep enough, but in those days it was like a pond.
GG: It’s where the Creek comes around and comes under the bridge.
JG: Because the bend was coming this way (the Coburg side) so all this was full of water. Quite deep.
GG: Because the Preston side is so high, the water all banked up this way.
DS: On Tate Reserve was that all cleared for a market garden?
JG: Yes, actually when the Board of Works came there was a bit of a hill with aniseed, so they cleaned it up, which was good.
DS: Did you have to get a license for a market garden or did you just clear it?
JG: No, you got to get permission in the city. In the country you make arrangement, you either buy or lease it, or whatever. But around here, I don’t know because it was a market garden. The only thing, a few years after the Board of Works bought it off me in ’77 in the end. Not that they gave me much, but still in those days that’s what it was.
Tell you the story about the frogs. Because the Creek got so polluted in the end, from 1963 all the frogs were coming out, they came into the garden, I said, what’s wrong with them, there’s something wrong with them, I said. They didn’t like the water for some reason or other. Then they went back, after a few months they disappeared. Haven’t seen a frog since.
DS: There are certainly no frogs in there now.
JG: No, they were froggling away night and day just about.
GG: It happened also with a lot of the birds. There are still a lot of birds around, but birds like kookaburras, they would wake you up every morning. For the last fifteen or twenty years at least, you’d never hear a kookaburra, never. Then all of a sudden out of the blue, every now and then you would hear one. I hadn’t heard one for a while, then a couple of weeks back, six or eight weeks ago, for three or four mornings, there was this kookaburra singing away. It’s a sound I miss terribly.
DS: You mentioned eels, were there other types of fish in there?
JG: Oh yes, there was platypus, redfins and other kind of fish, quite a few. Of course they weren’t much good for eating.
GG: Yes, but people used to come and fish there. In my early days, quite a few people came to fish there.
JG: I don’t like eels, but fish, yes. I was dumbfounded with the frogs, they disappeared completely.
GG: That might have to do, Joe, with the chlorination of the water coming down from the swimming pool. Like it affected your vegetables, it would affect their habitat as well.
JG: I think Kodak was the most responsible. But then the Council and the Board of Works….
GG: Did you know that Kodak had a outlet to the Creek for their recycled water or whatever you like to call it.
JG: In the beginning, that’s what happened. With all those frogs dying, there were a thousand frogs or more. When they came out, I was picking a crop of beans there and they were everywhere. I said what’s wrong with them, they come to us.
GG: You had fresher water.
DS: So the Creek was pretty much of a jungle.
JG: It was.
GG: It was awful when you had a flood.
JG: Especially this section here, I don’t know much about further down, but from the Coburg Lake to Bell Street, the Council at least cleaned it up a bit. But this section here was no-man’s land.
DS: You mentioned about the stone here when you were building. Were there any quarries in the area?
JG: No no, I think there was one in Glenroy somewhere. Mr Trevaskis was a builder in his day and he used to tell me because when we built here it was stony and there was not much machinery . He was telling me the story about – they had that quarry where CERES is now, they had a fairly big quarry there then, he said there is a vein about 40 kilometers or more.
DS: Were there any other businesses around, dairies for example?
JG: No, dairies it was only McKay’s dairy, that was the biggest, then there was Gilmore’s, they only bought the milk.
GG: Gilmore’s used to be off Bell Street and then Gilmore’s also use to have one near here. And Mr. Horder had a dairy in Rennie Street but they bought the milk. They got the milk and distributed it.
JG: The main dairy was McKay in those days. They had a big dairy, I don’t how many cows they had.
DS: You mentioned a tanning works.
JG: The tannery was in the Preston Market.
GG: It wasn’t right on the Creek.
DS: Another interviewee mentioned the smell. Do you remember anything about that?
GG: Joe said exactly the same thing when you told him about it.
JG: When we first came here, sitting in front of the house one hot day, and an easterly wind came. The smell! (laughs). One day, one of the immigrants, he was a friend of Dad’s, he said can you take me for a job, he couldn’t find a job in the sixties, and we went there,(tannery), I took him. In those days, they all asked me to go here and there. They helped me, and I helped them. And this particular time, he said let’s go, it doesn’t matter where I find work, it was the tannery, we went there. And the smell, it was strong! No wonder we could smell it from here. We couldn’t stay there. But then they built the Preston Market there.
DS: Finally, you have lived here for almost 70 years, what do you think has changed most?
JG: Well, the change we have seen since the ’80s, we are going too fast. It’s not sustainable the way we are going. I think we are placing ourselves out. Once upon a time, it was much calmer, but now every year things change.
GG: The expansion, to me, is too fast, where ever you go, houses up in minutes sort of thing. We have a shared holiday house at Inverloch and in 12 years that we have been going there, it’s amazing the growth everywhere. It’s the same here, you used to be able to see land, but now you have to go way past the Ford factory before you can see a bit of open land. It seems like it’s going to get worse.
JG: Nobody wants to live in the country, I don’t know why. You can find work more in the city, a lot more work.
Des Shiel: Thank you, Joe and Jean for taking part in the Project.
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