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.

  • All the goodness in those lemons

    Citrus limon. I adore it. And lemons are so useful in the kitchen, in Italy we say you should always have at least one at hand. You can drink their juice, full of vitamin C (also containing vitamin A, calcium and phosphorus) and hot, sweet lemonade is an Italian traditional cure for indigestion; the same…

  • Finding the right recipe for your produce

    It is very important to find the right recipes for your produce, the ones that bring out the best of its qualities – if you want to enjoy it. I am pretty sure that everything edible can be enjoyed if prepared in the right way. Just a few minutes ago I was talking to someone…

  • Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)

    Taraxacum officinale are beautiful wild flowers, laden in pollen (I remember a spring in the mountains when everything was covered in yellow “dust” as dandelions all came into flower) and last year, after reading about someone having the largest botanic collection of them, I started noticing the different leaf shapes… I even considered devoting them…

  • Aesculus (Week 20, Tuesday)

    You know what I was writing the other day about the media breeding hysteria in the public about plant pests and diseases? I was going to write about horse-chestnut today (Aesculus hippocastanum) and I found this article in Gardens Illustrated, which by the way is supposed to be an interview with Kew’s botanists, about the…

  • Fraxinus (Week 19, Tuesday)

    I get a bit miffed when the media get hold of a piece of news and make such a fuss about it and breed hysteria just to sell more. As it was with fungus Chalara fraxinea, which causes ash dieback, earlier in the year. Now ask anyone about plants and they will know practically nothing about…

  • 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…

  • 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.…

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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