We're back!

Hi everyone!

After a what has been a long winter and a rather soggy spring we're back on the plot. Here is a picture of the fabulous Bernie and Squeak who have been adopted by the Pearces as Andy and Laura have headed across the pond to Chicago. 
We've been looking after the girls over the winter and enjoying lots of tasty eggs and using them to make mayo & meringues. 
The girls can be seen here enjoying some massive worms on a freshly dug over patch!

Here is a picture of Chris and his sister Katy with our lovely niece Maya and Squeak lending a hand to move the chicken run to a fresh spot with lots of new grass and scratching room. Many thanks also go to photographer and champion chicken run mover Sam!






Fruit is thriving here at Allotment Virgins! Look out for a blog post coming soon about our orchard - an amazing wedding present from James and Cynthia! But for now here we have the first gooseberries and blackberries of early summer ripening on the bushes.

We're hopefully looking at a bumper crop of blackcurrants this year and are looking into some fruity-booze ideas. What would go best with the berries? Vodka? Gin? Any recipe ideas would be greatly appreciated and the results shared!

Autumn Bliss

Apples on little lottie

 

Here we have our late crop of French Jermor shallots - they're growing quite strongly  and we hope to see the bulbs split very soon!

























Since September Kayleigh has been studying for a PGCE but with the light almost visible at the end of the tunnel we're bringing back the market stall for the village
fête on 22nd June at the Victoria Arms. All money raised will be donated to VIP+ to provide extra-curricular activities for the children of the Hospital School, Meadowbrook and the Virtual School for Looked After Children. Come and check out the market stalls!

And finally, our mega spring harvest - 3kg of rhubarb from our Timperley Early and the maincrop crown donated to us by Wally a few seasons back. Most of it is going into Rhubarb and Rose or Rhubarb and Stem Ginger jams for the fête!

Keep it green folks,

K&C

Wedding Blooms and The Changing of the Seasons!

 Welcome to a brand new season of growing at Allotment Virgins HQ!
It's that time of year when Spring really begins to take hold and things are growing so fast we barely get a chance to blog them!
Our first splash of colour this season was a lovely pink houseplant from Ju, any ideas on the variety? We're a bit stumped but it's very thirsty and doing rather well on a sunny windowsill.

On December 2nd, Chris proposed and we're getting married this July! We're very excited and we'd like to grow as many of our own flowers as possible. Stay tuned for the growing story as we try and get as many larkspurs, cornflowers, wildflowers, poppies and sweet peas as possible for the day. Particularly looking forward to "Royal Romance" Sweet Peas from Dobies. They're half lilac, half deep purple and look beautiful!

Here is a picture of the lovely holly tree sent to us to mark our engagement from Kayleigh's Mum and Simon.

 The first sign of spring. The beautiful snowdrops appearing in the garden.

 Daffodils

 First crocus!

Here are our first seedling's this season. We have Tomato "Paul Robeson" which were saved last year by James and "Garden Pearl" which were part of our amazing £20 free seed haul from Seed Parade which we won on the Ryan's Garden Twitter comp!
We're so excited about our Chilli "Chocolate Habanero" which are germinating nicely and we also have a few of previous years' Sweet Pea "Tall Mixed" & "Anniversary Mix" growing well in loo roll middles to prevent root disturbance!

The plot is coming along very well, Chris is digging and battling the weeds and we're planting new crops all the time. The potatoes are chitting (we're going for a lot of 1st Early "Red Duke of York" and 2nd Early "Kestrel" this year with a few wildcards thrown in!

This is a pic of some lovely Early Rhubarb jam which is going fast at Allotment Virgins HQ, especially on vanilla ice cream! For all the latest market and jam news, please go to the Allotment Virgins website!

Good luck with your planting and preparation for the start of what will hopefully be a wonderful season! Off now to check out some water-saving ideas to protect our environment (and massive squash dreams) from drought this summer. Please share your stories in the comments below!

Keep it green,

love K&C

A few from the summer and a whole new start!

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Allotment Virgins blog!
This post is to catch you all up on this summer's activities, to start thinking about the colder months to come and to announce that Kayleigh has taken Allotment Virgins to the next level by starting up a business selling preserves and allotment crafts on market stalls in Oxfordshire!

 This year we had a bumper crop of tomatoes! We're not sure if it was the cooler weather or different seeds but this summer has been all about tomatoes roasted in herbs, olive oil and a little red wine vinegar instead of the caprese salads of last summer - did anyone else have a similar experience?

After a bout of unseasonably cold weather, steam was seen rising from the neighbours garden and does look rather beautiful behind the lilac.

Last year you may remember that we were due to visit River Cottage HQ but were snowed out. Well we finally made it! Thanks to Katy and Sam for an awesome 30th pressie for Chris!

Here's Kayleigh next to Hugh's composting system - very impressive! We had a delicious 6 course meal including pork cassoulet and beetroot marshmallows and the best tangy cheddar ever! Definitely worth checking out - www.rivercottage.net

Here is a selection of the huge harvest we had this summer - tondo di piacenza and black beauty courgettes have been delicious every way imaginable from raw baby salads to accompanying goat's cheese in a soup but especially delicious in a vegan curry along with an uchiki kuri squash!
Here pictured is also a spaghetti squash which we've yet to try (any suggestions?) and our first ever prize Baby Bear pumpkin!

 One of many Crown Prince squashes accompanied by a few of their curcubit relatives and our very first apple crop!

 Obligatory comedy tomato photo - please post one of your comedy veg shots!

Bird seed from our Giant Sunflower












After a beautiful and busy summer we now turn our attentions to autumn and winter. There's a lot of work to be done but we'll keep you up to date here. Also coming soon will be Allotment Virgins market news, preserves and crafts ideas and recipes. We're also very excited for the festive season!

 

Hope to see some of you guys at one of the markets above soon and for more information and to keep up to date, head on over to www.facebook.com/allotmentvirgins and give us a like! 

You can also get all the daily gossip on Twitter by following us @allotmentvs

But for now, we've got the need for seed and are off to plant some winter onions and garlic!

Keep it green, K&C

What a beautiful day :)

Lottie Pics x

Summer Showers

Hi guys! This week we've given little lottie a major overhaul - weeds are no more! With the hot and dry weather followed by some much needed rain, our overwintered alliums are now ready and have been harvested making way for crown prince squash, round zucchini, uchiki kuri, courgettes and pumpkins!

The onions are really good (looking forward to french onion soup!) but the star so far has been the garlic! Fried in a little butter and olive oil with some seasoning and fresh oregano from the garden and then added to a slice of rye bread  with a sprinkling of cheese, it has been delicious!

Here is a snap of our curcubit plants - hoping for a big harvest this year! Not wishing the summer away but we can almost taste the roast squash soup!

After some much needed TLC, the lottie is sparkling again with the promise of delicious food to come. This weekend we have been lucky enough to have eaten our own onions, shallots, garlic, beetroot, herbs, spinach, swiss chard, rhubarb and blackcurrants! The yellow veined chard has an amazing flavour and the fruit was gobbled up greedily by all in a fruit crumble - perfect with some vanilla ice-cream!

Potatoes and spring sown onions looking good after their tidy up this week. First signs of flowers on the potatoes!

Aubergines, chard, peas and poppies! The rain has really perked up everything on the plot, although Anoushka is not amused and has just popped through the cat flap soaking wet!

Savoy cabbages - lots of new growth in the centre since they've been planted out. Been fighting off the cabbage white caterpillar and larvae but they seems to be settled and growing happily now. Here's hoping we get our very first brassicas and break our curse!

"Serpette Guilloteau" peas in bloom.

 With little lottie looking pretty snazzy at the moment, thoughts are turning to soil improvement and planning for big lottie. A diagram, inspired by "The Self Sufficient Gardener" by John Seymour (70s classic "good  life" book) has been drawn and ideas for new planting are taking shape! Stay tuned to Allotment Virgins for updates!

Keep it green, K&C

Spring showers

 Hi everyone. We've been a little quiet on the allotment front of late but the late spring rain has brought out renewed enthusiasm in us!
This is partly thanks to the lodge garden which is positively singing at the moment! Here is a picture of our Arthur Bell rose, an old climber which has been flowering prolifically in this, it's first full season in the garden. It's flowers start off as tight red buds and go all the way through the yellow spectrum to a beautiful pale cream - and they smell gorgeous as well!

Down on the allotment everything has had a drink in the lovely rain we've had today. Here's what's happening at the lottie at the moment;

Spinach from organic seed  - produces lots of medium sized leaves and are delicious in salads or steamed.

 Swiss chard bright lights - just starting to sprout some baby leaves with yellow, rhubarb red and white veining - can't wait to tuck in!

The pink fir apple potatoes were glad of today's spring showers!

 Chelsea may be over and these guys were quite popular there this year but check out Allotment Virgins very own allium christophii!

 Remember our poor little apple tree with the top chopped off from when we took on little lottie?
Here it is now on the left - lots of fruit this year!

 Mmmm blackcurrants :) Looking forward to experimenting making some drinks this summer including a lottie cassis - inspired by James' delicious damson gin and raspberry vodka from last year!
We have some of James' damsons in the freezer eagerly awaiting to be added to some gin for a delicious summer cocktail :)

Everything from the growhouse took a trip outside today - hoping the curcubits and herbs will benefit from the rainwater!

 Here is our first tomato fruit! Feeling a lot more confident about our triffid-like tomato family after seeing that Monty Don also planted some tomato seeds in January on Gardener's World. Looking forward to *hopefully* making some pasta sauce for autumn out of these guys!

Mixed lettuce for summer salad :)

Spring has been crazy here, very dry (today's rain has been the first proper rain in months) so we've had a couple of early harvests from our overwintering crops. As well as some delicious green garlic we have also had some salad onions and an amazing choggia pink beetroot which we tried for the first time in a salad with some lime dressing... tastes like summer might just be on it's way!

Love K&C