Category: Uncategorised
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Raspberries in cages
This week I will be working in the fruit garden, where, in preparation for the winter, raspberries (Rubus idaeus) need to freed from the netting cages that protected them for birds in the summer. Plaiting netting First of all, we removed the side netting, which is stiffer plastic, and we rolled it up. Then we…
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Pruning cordons
Pink currants (Ribes rubrum cultivars) Soft fruit shrubs tend put up a lot of growth over the summer, and the last of summer pruning needed doing to keep the trained forms in check and tidy, so I was asked to start working on currants and gooseberries, cutting new growth back to 1-3 buds. Currants before…
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Grape stars
When my team leader gave us trainees an introduction to the Fruit Department, he showed us some dessert grapes grown in a small greenhouse by the orchard, remarking that they were high maintenance, requiring: an intensive regime of pruning and trimming, fruit thinning and stripping of the bark from the stems to expose pests before…
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Fruit picking in the orchard
My first full day in the team and we were all working together fruit picking in preparation for the ‘Wisley Taste of Autumn Festival’ that will take place in mid-October. A number of colleagues from across the Society and numerous volunteers joined us, in addition to the regular Fruit Department volunteers and the fruit pickers…
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Lifting safely
I have been here at Wisley for over a week now, but this is the week when we start doing some real work in our departments after a few days of induction. It started for me with a full day’s training on safe lifting, which I had never attended before. Do we have to lift a…
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Horticulture and innovation
Today I was tidying up my shed, one of those routine horticulture jobs that you could do without and that invite numerous breaks. During one I checked my Twitter and James Wong’s caught my attention: @Botanygeek: Yey! My first article for a weekend paper is out today. Why UK hort needs to be dragged into…
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Young apple trees, old apple trees
The London Orchard Project gave me the opportunity to spend another two lovely days pruning. Yesterday, we were in Fryent Park, taking care of a young orchard that had never been pruned before and whose trees required formative pruning. It was a lovely sunny day, and a rather big team was set loose on a…
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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