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

New additions to the allotment!

Hi everyone. What an amazing week! Today we harvested our first ever crops - spinach and mixed leaves and had them in our supper :)

The biggest thanks ever has to go to James and Cynthia for all of the gorgeous herbs and plants that they have given us. A full update of all of these new additions is coming soon but you can see my little favourite Japanese squash in the distance on this picture.

On the left here are our "Calabrese" broccoli that we put in tonight!

Yum super spinach!








Tomorrow - weeding, the grass has grown crazily over this sunny and wet week!

First gooseberries forming!

1st harvest! We used some of our basil from our growhouse too!

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