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

Tag: plants

Plants are my great love, they are like children to me. I sometimes indulge in sharing a bit more details about this plant or the other.

  • Indoors trained vines – part 2: spring

    … go to part part 1: winter Buds breaking on a spur As I was saying, now that’s spring, I have spent a couple of days training the new shoots, born out of the embryonic buds, to the wires that will help bear the weight of their large and perfect-looking grapes. How can I impress…

  • Indoors trained vines – part 1: winter

    After tending to Vitis ‘Muscat of Alexadria’ as one of the first things when I arrived back in September, I have spent more time in the greenhouse, tending to the very demanding crops that indoors vines are. After all grapes are picked, the greenhouse’s vents were opened, so the chill coming in stimulates leaf drop…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • The potager in the Cottage Garden

    Back from my extended Christmas leave I found a batch of plants waiting for me in the Garden’s reception area (that is where plants accepted into the garden are checked and monitored for pest and diseases). It was the Lonicera nitida for the hedging in my Cottage Garden, donated to the RHS by the lovely…

  • Conifers

    Conifers. For most of my life I have not considered them much individually: I loved their scent in the air on bright chilly nights when I lived in the mountains in Italy. Then I spent some time among labelled specimens at Kew, and a few things caught my attention: the fresh, aromatic scent they give…

  • Spindles

    Mature spindles A row of young spindles A kinky leader; on the side, a vertical branch Spindlebushes. A kinky leader at the top, not a permanent one; a layer of branches, slightly above the horizontal at the bottom (not the very bottom, about 75 cm), with a gap in the middle. This shape is widely…

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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