Ripe for the picking

THERE are few scents as lusciously evocative as the tomato plant in full bloom. So thickly, exotically vegetal you could cut it with a scythe, one whiff is all it takes for me to be whisked back to my grandparents’ greenhouse and carefree, sun-baked East Sussex days spent in the pursuit of nothing much at all. Those tomatoes were sublime, possessed of a sweet intensity that makes my mouth water, nearly 40 years on. The memory may