Last year, my mum did something rather unexpectedshe decided to sell us vegetables from her garden. She insisted that since we hadnt come round to help her, that was how it would be. And somehow she quickly forgot who had paid for the water, the greenhouse, the labourers who dug up the plot and helped put in the beds.
We used to get fruit and veg much cheaper from the supermarket anyway.
We never had a cottage or an allotment growing up. We lived in the city, and I doubt my dad ever saw what a potato looked like before it landed on the shelves at Sainsburys. Mum was the opposite; shed grown up in a village and had had her fill of the romantic side of keeping a garden as a child, so she never longed for one as an adult.
While my father was alive, we didnt need to worry about supplementing the weekly shop. He supported us all, even when it seemed impossible. Mum worked too, of course, but Dad always shouldered most of the expenses.
After he passed, not much really changed either. Once I was an adult and working, I was able to help out, and I did. We lived together, after all, so we split the bills. I only moved out when I got married two years ago.
Last year, mum retired and got it into her head that she missed the old days of her childhood, spending summers in her grandmothers legendary garden. She withdrew her savings and bought a little plot with a small house on it outside of Oxford. Personally, it wasnt the cosiest place, but what mattered was that she loved it.
Naturally, my wife and I had to lend a financial hand to fix up the place. Work paid well enough for us to sort out the house, get water hooked up to the garden and kitchen, and box in the old verandah. We couldnt afford a manor house, but we provided what was necessary.
We outright refused to become mums gardening workforce, though. Neither of us fancied spending weekends digging veg beds. Were city folk through and through, and weekends are for sleeping in, meeting up with friends, or enjoying a film together.
For our indifference to her gardening efforts, mum often had a go at us, but her lectures usually ended the moment we transferred her the next lot of money for the next project. She wanted new greenhouses, then the raised beds, then digging up some shrubs we paid for all of it, so mum never needed to lift the phone to book anyone else.
We even paid for a taxi when she was laden with groceries and couldnt manage the train.
From time to time, mum would show me pictures of her gardening successsunflowers taller than the fence, juicy lettuces, beans winding up her canes. I never got particularly excited; it wasnt my passion, after all. Until mum sent a photo of her strawberries.
The fruit looked enormousdeep red, glossy. I could almost taste them and, honestly, my mouth watered. I asked her to put some aside for me, and promised to swing by after work. It hadnt crossed my mind that mum would then send photos of different sized boxes and a note telling me how much each would cost.
I genuinely had to reread the messageat first, I thought Id missed a punchline. I called her, just to be sure: Did she really intend to charge me for a punnet of strawberries? Yes, she replied quite matter-of-factly.
And what did you expect? she said, I spend all day backbreaking over these plants, and you twolazy as anythingcant be bothered to visit once! Why should I give you anything for free? You dont work, you dont eat. Thats just how it is.
I reminded her, calmly, that wed put in just as much to make her garden possible. Mum, though, got huffy, treating me as though Id asked for a loan: How dare you talk to your mother like that?
I wont be buying fruit and veg from my mother out of principle. If she wants to make a bit of pocket money, let her sell to someone else. My wife and I will use the farmers market or M&Splenty of options now. Mum kept trying to palm off cucumbers and courgettes to us, but we gave her the obvious answer.
We wont be helping out in her garden again, not even if she asks. If she ever needs help with bills, medication, or something essential, of course, well be there. But as for the garden? Thats her project, not ours.
