It all began with two tiny tomato plants. I hadn't meant to buy them - I had no interest in gardening. I'd admired, but had no desire to emulate, my mother's efforts of carve a tropical version of a cottage garden out of a dry, stony and very steep hillside in Jamaica.
Now here I was with a couple of seedlings called Shirley. I planted the tomatoes in the one tiny bed under my kitchen window where I grow fresh thyme (no self-respecting Jamaican cook can be without fresh thyme)and thought that was that. So why did I sneak out every morning before work to see how they were doing?
My son watched my efforts with more and more amusement but his eyes glazed over when I began to enthuse about how well the plants were doing. At 18 he treated me with the indulgent briskness you reserve for kindly, but woolly-headed, pensioners.
That summer I realised that he could look after himself - he did not actually need me anymore - not like the tomato plants did. I bought plant food and applied it religiously. I spent time in the local bookshop reading the section on, "Raising Successful Tomatoes" in glossy gardening magazines.
The energy I'd once put into my son, I put into those plants. I was adjusting. The end, as it often does, came softly. In October I pulled up the sprawling yellow plants then stripped the green fruit from their carcasses before stuffing them into a bag. Finally I made green tomato and apple chutney.
For Mother's Day, my son bought, assembled and painted for me a bright blue garden bench.
