Orto di Casa Cecconi

My first allotment, and then one thing leading to another…

Tag: Wisley

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…