AceShowbiz - Rocker Joe Cocker has substituted his heavy drinking ways for gardening after discovering he has green fingers. The gravel-voiced "Unchain My Heart" hitmaker is almost a decade sober after heavy boozing nearly cost him his marriage and his health - and now he spends his time between albums and tours tending his garden in Crawford, Colorado.

He admits he has always had gardening in his blood. Cocker tells Mojo magazine, "My dad used to take me up to his allotment as a kid. I remember the smell of the tomato plants."

"After a couple of long Colorado winters I put up a greenhouse and I've become quite the tomato man. I get seeds given to me all around the world. Heirloom varieties." Cocker reveals he has even shown some of his prized fruit at a local fair, "I got second."