Mr D. Ellwood Still Busy Gardener At 99

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30602, 19 November 1964, Page 8

Mr D. Ellwood Still Busy Gardener At 99

"Are you looking for me?” asked 99-year-old Mr D. Ellwood, busily hosing his vegetable plot, when a reporter of “The Press” called at his Totara street home on Tuesday.

“Not a bad garden, is it? I spend five or six hours every day out here. It’s one of the things that make life worth living,” he said. Mr Ellwood showed with pride a plot of potatoes planted late in August and covered under plenty of straw. The haulms are more than a foot high, and Mr Ellwood said he would try the potatoes next week. “I’m pleased, very pleased, with them. All that remains now is the taste. If that’s good then I'll grow more.” Mr Ellwood said he had always been a keen gardener. “I grow anything and everything, and if there’s anything new on the market I like to give it a go,” he said. He was emphatic that plants and trees should not be sprayed with chemicals. “I’ve been here for 34 years 1 and never use a spray gun, ' and what’s wrong with what ; you see here?” he said. Everywhere on the section vegetables and flowers were growing in profusion. “Mind you, I compost everything. And I like to sow my own seeds so that 1 know they’ve not been doctored,” he said. After a tour of the garden Mr Ellwood suggested to his daughter that it might be a good idea to have afternoon tea. It was then that he explained why he was so fit at 99. “Eat slowly and chew your food well,” he said. “Too many people these days are in too much of a hurry and eat too fast That’s bad for the digestive system.” Normally Mr Ellwood rises each day about 6.30 a.m., and always has a cold shower. Mr Ellwood has never

been in an aeroplane, but he may fly at Christmas t< Timaru, where anothei daughter lives. After afternoon tea Mi Ellwood went out into the garden again to get on witt the “necessary work.” Yester day he had a few friend; at his home for an afternoor birthday celebration.