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

We're Jammin'

*STOP PRESS*

Tomato count now stands at a grand total of 140!

We have learned a lot about tomatoes and have really enjoyed our zingy minibels, tangy gardener's delights and saladilicious ailsa craigs :)

The next batch are going to be roasted with rosemary (just like we had on hols!) and the final few will be turned into chutney so we can have tomatoes until winter :)

Next year we're planning to grow Costoluto Genovese tall vines and we'd also like to grow some big beef toms. Any advice (especially on whether or not its worth trying to overwinter seedlings!) would be greatly appreciated! We'd love to get a bumper crop next season!

Here's a picture of our Uchiki Kuri squash just starting to ripen!

Our Crown Prince is now huge! Any ideas on when to harvest?

We've just got back from a lovely holiday in Le Marche, Italy. The small-holding at the villa we stayed at was amazing and inspired many an Italian dinner both there and now that we're back home. Here's a little pic of the amazing chilli stall we saw at the village market :)

Now back in our own village we've been taking full advantage of the last of the summer fruits - here's our first ever attempt at jam :)

Allotment Virgins Jam!




Thanks everyone for all of your tips. Today we also harvested courgettes, potatoes and french beans. Next up - Kailaan (Oriental Broccoli) and Winter Lettuces!

Love Kayleigh and Chris xxx

Summer at the allotment!

Hi all! And welcome to our summer updates! It's been a very busy time of late, the tomatoes are ripening, the herbs are going wild and there's been a lot of progress on the allotment - not least by the weeds!

On the left is a picture of our first ever unearthed earlies! Potatoes for tea tonight :) Hopefully with more good weather, water and a lot of hoeing the potatoes will get bigger (looking at you maincrops!) and we'll have potatoes all summer and maybe even some to store. Not bad for a first go!

Onions are going from strength to strength. Not as big as Wally's massive efforts but they'll be sweet and delicious in some late summer salads!

A big thanks going out to Sarah who helped us to clear a lot of weeds and plant our courgettes ('black beauty' from our dig in seeds) out. They, along with our "Crown Prince" and "Uchiri Kiri" squash (thanks James!) are now flowering and we can't wait to tuck in soon!

Super salad!

Our plucky Old Marston chilli!

Thanks to Andy and Laura from the allotment for the eggs. Thanks to Mrs. Scruff and Roxy for laying them too!

The allotment and garden are both getting really exciting now as summer is here. Loads of cut flowers in the kitchen too (sweet peas!). Looking forward to getting more involved in the allotment with the warmer weather and looking towards our end of summer barbeque :)

Next up, kale for winter, planting out the pumpkins for thanksgiving and overwintering some evening primrose seeds this autumn (thanks to Restore!)


Enjoy the lovely weather,

K&C