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

Down the allotment

 Hi guys, it's been about a month since our last post and the allotment has come on a ton!
These are our 'French thermidrome' overwintered garlics and some of our 'jermor' and 'giant red' shallots. Looking forward to some fresh 'green' garlic for salads later this month :)

 Senshyu & red baron onions for harvesting in a month or so!











This red gooseberry bush was leftover from the old owner of our plot which was pretty overgrown when we took it over. After not doing a great deal last year we cleared the patch and took out the bush. As spring started to spring a month or two ago, the bush (which was just sat at the side of the plot with some drying out seedheads) was covered in green shoots, and now after planting it with our fruit bushes is now covered in fruit :)

 Super red onions!

This is a snap of the blackcurrant bushes that we planted from Bill. Now covered in tiny berries :)

 This is the raspberry bush that Kayleigh got for her birthday - anyone any tips on the summer fruiting varieties?

 This is a picture of the Damson 'pixi' tree that James grafted for us. Looking forward to making some jams and wine - maybe just a taste this season but looking forward to next year!

 Potato land - featuring all our varieties but our pink fir's which are in new lottie.

Feeling the hungry gap?
Microsalads are the most 'abundant' crop at OMMLAA at the moment! In the coldframe and the kitchen there are lots of seedlings waiting to get into new lottie - most looking forward to tomatoes, squash and peppers!

So, as May begins, what to do now?
Can't help but feel that we're either a little too far ahead of ourselves (massive tomato plants!) or maybe a little behind. What will you be doing this May?


Keep it green, K&C x

Autumn on the plot

Hi everyone!  We've been very busy on the plot recently, saying goodbye to all of our sunshine crops and starting afresh with a new rotation for autumn and winter.


Here's a pic of one of our new beds that have some new blackcurrant canes in (thanks Bill!) and lots of the lovely allium family at the back. We have Senshyu yellow Japanese onions, Jermor shallots, Electric red onions and French thermidrome garlic as our allium autumn varieties in for overwintering, bring on June!

Here's our plucky globe artichoke plant which has grown considerably since it arrived from Katy this summer. Here it is all tucked in to keep it safe from the frost (eek! not yet please!)

Yum, blackcurrant jelly this summer please!

Our new layout, we have planted some spring bulbs in the front for some early colour.

Little Electra leeks - getting stronger so fingers crossed for a few later in the season! K&C

Not bad for a couple of virgins!

Hi everyone and welcome to the Allotment Virgins Midsummer Bumper Harvest!
Our first try at carrots has done really well. We're going to plant a second row of chantenay seeds (red cored 2 variety!) - now we've tasted fresh and homegrown there's no going back! Salad is becoming a staple these days as the "cut and come again" varieties of mixed leaves that we've planted are doing just that! Hopefully they'll be on the menu until the first frost!
All of our onions are out of the ground now and are residing in the garden to bake in the sun a little before tying.

Potatoes are coming out today - any advice on storing them?
Lots of them will be eaten up this Sunday as roasties anyway :)

Delicious!

Onions are drying out now!

We've had a lot of wind and there was some damage but all in all things are going well.

The Allotment Virgins are now preparing for a new adventure - midsummer - winter planting (leeks, spinach beet, kale etc!) Some tips would be greatly appreciated!

Many thanks as always!

Love Kayleigh and Chris

xxxx

Oooooh ooooh VERMICULITE!

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

Onion Update!

Just a quick pic to show you how our onions are getting on! Any tips for the next stage? A big thanks to Carol too, your sweatpea tip really worked and we have our first shoot now! K&C x

Onion sets!

Today we started digging out beds in the allotment and put in our onion sets. Spinach, tomatoes and globe shaped carrots to come, keep us on the right track with your tips!

Potatoes and Onions

hey guys! after the unexpected frost and mountains of snow we've had recently, things have been a little quiet on the allotment front! Now it has all cleared we hope to get digging and have a bit of an allotment party soon :) In the meantime we've been chitting seed potatoes and just got some little onions that need planting in the coming weeks. As usual, any tips would be great! Love Kayleigh and Chris x