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

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

Garden and a touch of frost at the allotment

Hi everyone, sorry we haven't been blogging for a while but we have a whole host of new updates for you here tonight! On the agenda we have, garden updates, allotment highs and lows and pleas for tips for future plans!

First off we have our newly spruced up garden shed! Our garden used to be really overgrown but after some sterling work from Chris to cut it back and a bit of planting from myself it's now coming along nicely! La piece de resistance is the lick of paint on the shed (a lovely pink and blue hue that we mixed together ourselves - much thanks to the B&Q ladies for all their help!) You can also see our compost bin here which is filling up nicely. Any advice on mulching it or what we need to add/do for the best fertiliser for the crops?

Here is a picture of our growhouse from about a month ago. The onions pictured here are bolted but we've planted some of the others we started in March and some new sets directly into the allotment and they're all doing nicely now.

These are our "Minibel" variety tomatoes that we grew from our very first gardeners world seeds. They're around 7cm tall now, only 3cm more and then they'll be ready for their final bedding place, some possibly in growbags in the garden, some maybe in the allotment. Any advice? They've just started to form their first flowers at the top of their (very strong!) stems too.

These little chaps are a couple of pepper seedlings from the pepper seeds that Loo bought us. They were struggling when we planted them first, but Chris saved these two little guys and from when this picture was taken until now they have come on leaps and bounds. They're getting really strong and they now have their own 10cm pot each - we'll keep you posted and hopefully we'll get some fruit!

My beautiful birthday rose bush from Carol

Spring flowering hanging basket from Chris. Officially the latest blooming daffodils in Old Marston, possibly the world...

Super potato plant!

Unfortunately a couple of our plants have been hit by the recent frost. Going to keep looking after them but maybe have a little crop. Looks like a lot of the potatoes on the allotment have been affected by the frost so we've gotten off lightly! Keeping them all watered, fed and covered until summer gets here so we can have a bumper crop on the rest!

Jack Frost?
Sir David Frost?
Inspector Frost?
Frosty Jack?


Whodunnit?!?!?!

Shoots on the apple tree

Mixed leaves

Super spinach!

New pic of the growhouse with our Calabrese Broccolis ready to go in.

Thanks everyone, we're going to plant some courgette seeds soon if anyone has any tips. Also, we'd like to grow a pumpkin or two for Thanksgiving and Hallowe'en if there are any experts out there?

K&C