Sally Godet is somewhat like a Duchess of Nature living in her husband Scott's, home in Paget with its sprawling two and a half acres of exotic fruit orchards, lovely vegetable and herbs, and flower gardens.

The Godet family has owned this splendid property since about 1865 and about ten years ago Mr. and Mrs. Godet decided to transform the gardens and grow things.

Her passion for gardening resulted in her home business of jam making and growing plants and trees for sale. She has been working diligently this year to keep up with the demands of orders from various hotels and local clientele, especially during the Christmas season.

Mrs. Godet is a very perky and vivacious lady with an English background with surmountable energy who moves ahead full throttle with her home business of jams and plants for sale.

"As a child our family had fruit trees so naturally we learned how to be resourceful with what we had. We had raspberries, strawberries and vegetables too. My mother, sister and I did gardening as a family activity.

"My mother taught me, from the age of five, how to cultivate my own little square garden and as I recall I was very proud of the mustard and cress which I cultivated with great care and love. My efforts delighted my parents.'' Mrs. Godet believes the `learning through landscape' supports learning in school and the easiest way to get a child interested in gardening is to give the child something to grow, water, and watch on a daily basis.

It can be a few seeds in a flower pot or if you have property a little five foot square garden. Begin with simple things such as herbs from seeds or tiny plants.

"I have learned most of my gardening skills from other people. I have taken a few courses from the Bermuda College and from friends at the Garden Club of Bermuda. Basically I am a self-taught person who has a passion for growing things. We learn by doing and I have always been very `hands on'.'' She does it all from start to finish; she grows the fruit, picks the fruit, cooks the fruit into jam, and sells the jam, which makes her very chipper and cheerful. She has a friend who collects bay grapes by the shore for her.

"I feel that I have a strong bond with nature and we are so fortunate to have at our disposal this property, which we farm and nurture. It provides us with so much fruit and that's how I started jamming up.'' "Sadly, Bermuda has lost so much of its open spaces over the last 20 years or so. First time visitors are in awe when they see all that we have growing here,'' she said.

Walking about the grounds you see all sorts of interesting and beautiful trees and plants such as: guava, peach, lemon, lime, grapefruit,yellow guava, loquat, strawberry banana and regular banana, pomegranate, and fig.

Inside her slat house she has paw paw plants on the top shelf left of the door, a charming old wicker chair, a wheel barrow, hanging stalks of bananas, pots and potting soil.

She is always growing something from seeds. She has grown cedar trees from seeds as well as Palmettos and Olive Woods.

For her taste of Bermuda in a bottle she imports her glass jars from England and this year she ordered 17,000 small jars and 10,000 large jars.

Mrs. Godet's 16 jams are all natural made in her Bermuda kitchen from fruit she grows. Her kitchen is inspected yearly by the Health Department.

Some of her top sellers are loquat jam, Natal plum jam and marmalades. It has taken her many years experimenting and perfecting her jam recipes.

She makes several chutneys: banana, loquat, Star fruit and apricot.

Mrs. Godet is a woman of many talents and is very pleased at the way her gardens have evolved over a decade of care.

"It was sad ten years ago and now it is happy and productive. I'm planting trees for future generations. I hope my grandson, Alexander, will be interested in carrying on our gardening traditions.'' She briefly shared her feelings about her most important life achievements: "Of them all I would have to say 32 years of blissful marriage, two wonderful children and my grandson.'' When shopping for plants, trees or jams and chutneys, give Mrs. Godet a call at 236-5586. She promises that you will not have a parking problem.

Sally Godet, the best jam maker in Paget, loves growing fruit, plants and trees. She feels that she shares a bond with nature.