The image above shows a consignment of tomatoes that Isidoro, Ermenegildo, and Giuseppe Ballestrin sent to Melbourne in the early 1950s. Usually the tomatoes were sent by train but in this case, they were on the truck because of a train drivers’ strike. Image supplied by Frank Ballestrin.
Summer … In Adelaide at the moment we are in the first weeks of February and there are some extremely hot days – and nights. Of course, there are the benefits of summer – the harvests of fresh vegetables and it is the wonderful season of stone fruits. We are also fortunate to have air conditioning.
The older generations of the Veneto market gardeners worked very hard in summer on their land – harvesting and selling tomatoes and other vegetables , maybe shifting the glasshouses and there was also time to leave work and be with the family at the beach cooling off and enjoying some leisure.
The following excerpts include the memories of some of the people I interviewed for the Veneto market gardeners oral history project. They tell a story of the challenges of work in summer, the heat – and the escape to the beach with the family.
Dino Piovesan, OH 872/17, 23 September 2011
Dino spoke about the work he and his brothers did in the market garden in summer:
… in the early years growing up, we would come home from school, and there was no such thing as doing your homework straight after you got home, especially in the summer months. It would be our job as kids to carry out the prunings, the leaves, of what Mum and Dad had pruned in the glasshouses, and once my older brother and I, because my younger brother was still a bit too young to do that, my older brother, Nillo, and myself, would be the ones to carry out the leaves. And eventually it was only after tea, as we call it, or after dinner as they say now, that we would have time to do our homework.
Bruno Piovesan OH 872/5, 4 October 2008
Bruno remembered that he and his brothers worked with their uncle to shift glasshouses in summer after their father died suddenly:
[My uncle] come down to Adelaide when my father had passed away and he virtually went into partnership with my mother with glasshouses, and they worked virtually together on the land. In those years, apparently you could earn a pretty good living with glasshouses, because there weren’t fumigations in those years. And I mean every year one chore in the summertime was shifting glasshouses and we used to hate it all the time. You used to get two crops a year out of a glasshouse and after that they’d get disease, you couldn’t grow any more plants in there, they’d all wilt away and die before the crop ripened; so you had to shift glasshouses, and that was a chore… Oh! Big job. (laughs) And hot!
Johnny Marchioro, OH 872/1, 21 July 2008
Johnny remembered what his father used to do when the tomato crops had finished in summer:
At the end of the season, we would clean up inside the glasshouses, cut down the tomato plants and take the ends off the glasshouses. My Dad would put a very long rope on the horse and rip the soil with a small plough and also dig by hand. It had to be level to be ready for planting. The seeds had been planted in January and the seedlings were ready to plant in mid-February.
Mary Tonellato nee Zoanetti, OH 872/3, 3 October 2008
Mary remembered that she enjoyed the summers – even in the glasshouses:
Well, I used to like my summers. I don’t like the cold weather that much. (laughs) … It was not scorching in the glasshouses, but outside it would have been, but not scorching; it was more steamy in the glasshouses.
Noemi Campagnolo nee Zalunardo OH 872/29, 20 March 2014
Noemi recalls the variety of vegetables her parents grew on Grange Road and refers to the jobs in their market garden in summer:
Well, they had 25 glasshouses. They used to grow tomatoes and when it was sort of summer time, the tomatoes came off and beans, they used to put in there. And some glasshouses had capsicums and that’s an about it I think, inside. And then they had carrots, lettuce outside, potatoes, a lot of potatoes… Yeah, they had a fair few people helping them sometimes. Depended on the weather. If it was summer time, it was always early in the mornings – you have to do the things early in the morning.
Sandra Semola, OH 872/44, 27 April 2017
Sandra describes the need to start working early and getting the watering done on the very hot days in summer:
Depending on the weather, if it was hot, we used to get up very early, about 3:00, 3:30 or 4:00 o’clock sometimes, depending what we were doing, you know. If it was going to be a hot day, we used to get the water, start getting the water, watering the glasshouses or whatever was outside. And then … we did as much as we could and when it got too hot, we had to stop because the water was sinking away, and as soon as it started cooling down, we used to start watering again. So, I’d be watering till late at night.
Anna Santin nee Mattiazzo, OH 872/24, 17 April 2013
Anna recalled the trips to the beach in summer:
We used to take the kids there – there was no air-conditioning in the house those days – we used to take the children when it was really hot, for the kids to … otherwise, you know, they used to enjoy the beach. We used to go under the jetty.
Frankie Ballestrin OH 872/7, 12 December 2008, p 15
Frankie remembered the relief of going to the beach when it was hot – after the tomatoes had finished in the glasshouses:
And in summer when the season was over, tomato season – it used to be very hot in those years, a lot hotter than what it is now; in longer periods, too – and we used to go to the beach all the time. They’d sit under the jetty, all the women, with us kids and Dad used to come, too.
Madeleine Regan
9 February 2025
