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: 2014

  • My experience of the RHS

    Today new staff from all the gardens (Wisley, Hyde Hall, Rosemoor and Harlow Carr) was brought together for induction day. I have been through a good few induction days in my career, and that corporate self-congratulatory feel about a lot of them has made me less than excited to attend such events. But I did…

  • Planning the revamped cottage garden

    I have spent quite a few nights, planning the revamp of my area, the Cottage Garden in the Model Fruit Garden, and a few daylight hours weeding it and getting to know it close up, including measuring it up and drawing a plan. The area consists of a formal garden on the left, with straighter…

  • 10 apples or so a day: keeps the doctor away?

    After all the picking, and the rehearsal in London earlier in the month, the last six days have been full-on on apples at the Wisley Taste of Autumn Festival and one can get enough of apples, I tell you! Produce display for Wisley Taste of Autumn After a day of set up that involved me checking stored crates of…

  • Nothoscordum borbonicum

    Nothoscordum borbonicum Only one weed is considered obnoxious at RHS Garden Wisley, and that is honeybells or onion weed (Nothoscordum borbonicum). It is spreading in the fan borders and the fruit garden, so I have had the opportunity to weed it out a few times in the last couple of weeks, so I’ve become familiar with it.…

  • Crop of the week: grapes

    As part of our coursework our teams ask us trainees to study specific crops in more details, so that we learn: some general information about the plant and how it is grown; available and recommended cultivars, including any with an Award of Garden Merit (AGM); common pest and diseases and how to deal with them. As the…

  • An area all of my own in the Model Fruit Garden

    I was offered to take charge of an area in the Model Fruit Garden that needs some redevelopment as a cottage garden. It is an exciting, though slightly daunting (as I have never done a large scale design before), project! My manager will offer me a small budget to acquire some plants and one day a…

  • The London Harvest Festival

    All the team went up to London in shifts over the last couple of days to showcase our apples at the London Harvest Festival, held at the RHS Lindley Hall. The Festival revolves around the RHS Fruit & Vegetable Competition, which everyone can enter with their lovingly tended produce, and compete on the traditional criteria of size and…

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.

Links

Blog Archive

Some Rights Reserved

Creative Commons License
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.