Month: February 2015
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A day in the veg garden
Spring is coming so it looks like I might be spending more time in the veg garden. Today we did some clearing of spent crops (chicory and chard), covering beds so the soil warms up and new crop can be grown earlier and tidying up leeks. Chicory ‘Charlotte’ The bed after clearing The reason for…
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Little soldiers in a row…
… what am I saying, elders, little elders in a row. Starting on a sunny morning and ending with the afternoon rains, we spent the whole day making treecircles around the little elders in between the fan borders. These Sambucus nigra (and S. nigra f. porphyrophylla, the purple-leaved form) plants, some 30 – two each…
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The vineyard
I still remember how pruning the vineyard was such a relief at the end of the pruning training week, as it was so straightforward and one could whizz through it, feeling rewarded at the end! Principles are really clear and so is the putting them into practice. We use the “double Guyot” replacement system, which…
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Big buds and short stumps
Cecidophyopsis ribis, also know as big bud mite, sapsucker. A tiny (at < 1 mm) but nasty one, as it helps transmit what is known as reversion disease, a viral infection. Fascinating life forms, viruses: DNA/RNA sequences coated in protein, that are dormant at maturity and so can survive for hundred of years only to…
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Rose pruning
After my rather demoralising experience with the rambling rose, I was looking forward our rose pruning masterclass today. Different types of roses need different pruning regimes to ensure good flowering, and we had a go with the four different types below. In general, when rose pruning, one aims at creating an open centred shrub to…
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More progress in the Cottage Garden
The new path was edged! Woodchips ready for spreading Back from the weekend I found another surprise: my wonderful colleague on duty had edged the new path with wooden boards ready to take woodchips… which my fellow trainee in the arboretum got for me as quick as a flash. Another of my plants, Aronia ‘Viking’…
About Me
M.Paola Andreoni
I got the first allotment in 2007 (in the UK) and started growing my own food for the first time. Learning as I went along was not enough, so I studied some horticulture. I am striving to abide by organic principles. Brexit gave me a new life in the Netherlands, and two new plots by a nature reserve.
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