You would need to follow a long trail to know why tomato plants have only now appeared in my greenhouse - much later than everyone else's. And it raises a question I am not prepared to answer at this point: it is too embarrassing by far. I would prefer to explain my gardening credentials rather than my discrepancies, so hang on.

First and foremost, the credentials: My broad beans circa 1984 were praised at the time and long remembered. I have had serious discussion with both Percy Thrower and Geoffrey Smith. I have spoken to a grower near Forton in Lancashire who has onions so big they could challenge those balls you see on pillars at the entrance to stately homes. None of them laughed at anything I said unless I wished them to. We were compatible. Mr Thrower gave me a large gin and his big black dog certified my credentials but without offering a rosette.

Perce always had a swarm of midges around his head. I think they were trained. He smiled through them as they busily wove their wonders. I dare say they never left him even as winter approached. Indeed, I imagine they went on dancing above his head until the frosts came when, being so tiny, they would freeze up immediately and fall with a tiny tinkle at his feet.

I saw Geoffrey Smith at his home in Yorkshire and we had an earnest discussion about our plant trade as his wife provided a splendid meal that came crunchily straight from his garden.

So much, then, for the credentials. On tiny matters, however - names of plants, how to propagate them, their chief characteristics - I am, I have to admit, inclined to go wrong. Many years ago I invented a way out of this: I began to invent names.

Walking through stately gardens I would say, "What a wonderful betta splendens," and people would stare at the plant concerned with greater interest. Betta splendens is a Siamese fighting fish. I am not bad on fish, having kept tropicals as a yoof.

As an alternative to Betta, I would say, "I have never before seen such a beautiful lebistes reticulatus." And my wife would say, "It's a nasturtium," sabotaging me totally.

She rumbled me long ago. Lebistes reticulatus is also a fish, a humble guppy.

A gardening person like me has to be more cunning than those Who Know. I overturned her complacency. While driving, I said, "Have you, by any chance, noticed a huge rhododendron?" and when she replied "No," I added: "You should have done." "Why?" she said (just the once, just the once). "Because," I replied in triumph, "that last sign said, 'Large plant crossing.'"

Which brings me - most reluctantly - to the nub of the matter: Why have tomato plants just appeared in my greenhouse?

Well, it came about this way. A friend who helps out in my garden said his growing family had a great affection for chillies, and since he did not have a greenhouse, would it be all right for him to plant chillies in mine?

Of course, I said. Chillie away. And when I next looked, the greenhouse was unusually tidy and there were five large pots of soil in a row. Very quickly there were signs of plant activity in each. To save my friend the trouble (he visits once a week but usually goes nowhere near the greenhouse) I watched them day and night, watering carefully. They shot up from nowhere like people you know do when it's your round. Finally, they reached the roof and began to show modest little purple flowers.

My wife, who had not been visiting the greenhouse, said how nice it would be to pinch a chillie or two. "They're in flower yet," I said. "There's nothing there that looks like a chillie."

When my friend next came and attacked an unruly hedge, I said, proudly, "You want to look at your chillies. Coming along nicely. Water 'em every day."

"What chillies?" he said and we ran briskly towards the greenhouse. He had not planted any. "These," he said, inspecting the tall plants, "are weeds."

I congratulate the man who invented the word consternation because that is what I felt, and it precisely describes the condition.

The tale got around. When my wife went to meet others of her coven for coffee recently, she was presented with several tomato plants, quite small, and I duly potted them on (a technical term which you need not bother with if you are agriculturally challenged).

I sent the husband of the donor an email: "I thank you very much for the plants. They are already potted on by the green fingers possessed of yours truly, and the weeds have been turfed out of the greenhouse to much wailing and gnashing of shoots."

"We are delighted that they are going to a good home," he replied.

To underscore his wise judgment, I then declared, "We have called the larger one Bruce. He has a bigger pot. Still undecided about the children. I water them daily. If only they could wet themselves like other infants."

And there the matter rests. We should have a great tomato crop by next February or March. Don't pass this on. As I said - too embarrassing by far for the ears of gentlefolk.

And lo! They were as one

American politics are a wonder to behold. The Obama-Clinton saga moves from aggression and innuendo, sour words and back-stabbing to cooing noises and sugary phrases as opponents become allies in a larger struggle. Here is a miracle reminding us inevitably of St Paul's conversation on the road to Damascus (although he, unlike Obama, told women to keep silent). His experience transformed Christianity. The Obama-Clinton effect remains, for the time being, suspended twixt here and heaven and could move either way. Probability theory suggests, however, that heaven will be no nearer for any of us when the dusts of the Presidential election have settled.

Geoffrey Mather © 2008

July 3, 2008

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