Orto di Casa Cecconi

My first allotment, and then one thing leading to another…

L’orto di Casa Cecconi Plants Recipes Me & Kew One Year at Wisley

Year: 2013

  • Spiraeas (Week 18, Wednesday)

    Was finalising the stockcheck of bed 435-03 today, which is Spirea central. This is one of the tidier beds, with plants well within their own boundaries for the great part. But a couple of the labels on the Spireas got mixed up, so I had to undertake a bit of investigative work. Internet at the…

  • The return of the bindweed (Week 18, Monday)

    I wrote extensively about bindweed and my experiment to see how long it would take for it to regrow, once carefully dug out from as deep as possible in the entrails of the earth… In any case, here is a photographic summary from the first week of June, when I carried out the clearance –…

  • Prunus laurocerasus (Week 17, Thursday and Friday)

    I have spent the last two days dealing with a massive plant of Prunus laurocerasus I had my eyes on since shortly after I started on the South Canal beds. Bed 437-02, as it is known to the Kew-initiated, had two massive prostrate species of Prunus: laurocerasus and laurocerasus var. salicifolia. We had tackled the P.…

  • Under cover (Week 17, Wednesday)

    It was raining today and as I was not feeling too well, so I asked to work indoors, and was sent to the Princess of Wales Conservatory, with some lovely people, doing weeding among weird and wonderful plants. Hope you enjoy their pictures, while I’m off under cover again, of my bedsheets this time. I…

  • The Quarantine House (Week 17, Tuesday)

    Today we had the pleasure to visit the Quarantine House, where plant material that gets into Kew (from donations and expeditions) and out of the gardens (for example to repatriate seeds to repopulate areas in the wild for which conservation had been undertaken) is scanned and kept to ensure no pest or diseases are released…

  • It’s raspberry time!

    I have not written for a while about the allotment, as Kew is taking up most of my time, energies and generally most of my thoughts… However, although it is the case that I am not doing as much as I would like to (isn’t that the case every year?!?), I am growing, picking and…

  • Droughts, goodbyes and Physocarpuses (Week 16, Friday)

    It seems that most horticultural traineeships/apprenticeships are applied to in January for an August start. That means that July in the final month for the participants in the schemes and today three of our trainees have gone. I will miss them, we had a good time together! Other than that, today too I’ve been working…

About Me

M.Paola M.Paola, that’s me

I got my first allotment in the UK in 2007 and started gI got my first allotment in the UK in 2007 and started growing my own food. Learning as I went along was not enough, so I studied horticulture. Faced with the horticultural warfare, I became a conscientious objector: I use no chemicals and support organic principles and regulations.

Brexit gave me a new life in the Netherlands, three new plots by a nature reserve and an MSc in sustainable food systems.

I write in my personal capacity and, as a language perfectionist and a non native speaker, I keep reviewing my entries’ text for clarity.

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