John the Geologist

My father, John Adams, was a wonderful gardener, but sadly died 9 years ago at the age of 64. On his last day he spent over eight hours in his garden. Not a bad way to go.

The garden has been kept tidy since then but has not had the same effort, love and care lavished on it. Nature is trying to take over again.

For example, this Belfast sink was planted by Dad with a series of perennials and annuals. Now the perennials have taken over and have reverted to type.

His shed is still in the same condition as he left it. My garage (i.e. large garden shed) looks much the same, maybe it’s genetic!

I often wish he was still around to share gardening tips and stories.

More pictures are in my Neglected Garden set on Flickr.

The main garden job of the Bank Holiday weekend so far was building a cold frame so that we don’t have to keep running out to the greenhouse in the morning to take all the plants out and the evening to put them back again. It also creates more space in the greenhouse for more plants!

The cold frame sits nicely in front of the greenhouse, and takes seven seed trays. The sides are attached using wing nuts so that we will be able to dismantle and store it in around a month’s time. We built the frame from scratch using wooden planks and battens and painted it a nice chalky green colour.

Unexpectedly for Glasgow at the end of April, we have had two consecutive days with bright blue skies, endless sunshine and 16-18 degrees C. I’m glad I took a flexi day yesterday!

As there were only the two of us for Christmas dinner this year (don’t worry, all the family descend from Boxing Day onwards), we went for food we really like rather than the traditional approach.

Starter:
Goats cheese coated in brioche breadcrumbs, fried and served with Serrano ham and tomatoes in balsamic, honey and white truffle oil dressing.

Main course:
Pan-fried scallops with spicy sausage meat, served with salad leaves picked from the garden earlier.

Pudding:
[comes much later in the evening, after we've relaxed for a while and made some room]
Jacqueline’s Mum’s own-recipe Christmas pudding and creme anglais.

Jacqueline picked what we expect to be the last flowers of 2005 this afternoon, just as dusk was falling. The flowers include dahlias, cosmos, salvia, cerinthe, calendula and rosemary, and have been flowering since the middle of June.

We expect a frost tonight, so we don’t expect many of these annuals and half-hardy perennials to survive the night. Still, it is remarkable that they have continued so long into the autumn.

We got home from holiday on Sunday to a bumper harvest:

Courgettes and tomatoes:

The courgettes (variety Zucchini) come from three main plants with two or three smaller plants. The tomatoes are from six greenhouse plants (three cordons in large pots, three Tumblers in hanging baskets) and two Totem plants in outdoor pots. Outdoor tomatoes have been very successful this year, which surprised me at this latitude.

And a single pear from our Conference pear tree:

We did not expect any fruit this year, so were surprised by the single pear. We hope for more next year.