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

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  • When pear shoots go black

    After coming out green and fresh, full of life, pear shoots can suddenly turn black and droopy. The sight is quite dramatic but can really signify anything from harmless to “quick, remove that and burn it!”. Below are two of the most frequent reasons, starting with the harmless one. Pear shoot sawfly (Janus compressus) Not…

  • Peach leaf curl (Taphrina deformans)

    Another plant species that is commonly known to suffer from red, curled up leaves in the spring is peach. The curling up is caused by a fungus, Taphrina deformans. The fungus, which favours cool and wet weather, causes leaves to pucker; the blisters are often red and rather showy, just before the fungus starts producing…

  • Pear pests and diseases

    One of the joys of horticulture is the continuous learning process you go through while caring for and observing your plants through the seasons, year after year. One of the frustrations is that we seem to know rather less than we think we do about plants and the environment: it is sometimes difficult to be…

  • A new phase: mission statement and privacy

    It’s been a long time since I last wrote a blog post of my own. This blog started off as a way to share my enthusiasm as I took my first steps in the world of allotment growing (Orto di Casa Cecconi means: the plot of the Cecconi household). When I became a professional, the…

  • Apologie van een tuin

    (this is the one and only post in Dutch on my blog) Iemand noemed mijn tuin ‘een puinhoop’. Volgens die iemand, doe ik niet genoeg om mensen te laten weten wat ik ben met mijn tuin aan het doen. Daroom denken mensen dat mijn biodiverse tuin is een ‘puinhoop’.  Mijn oppottafel Ook, maak ik mijn…

  • Organic, local, artisanal bread

    When I first came to Woerden I was very excited by the presence in town of an artisanal baker that uses organic flour. At a time when it’s all too common for supermarkets to sell heated up frozen, partially pre-cooked industrial or semi-industrial dough, he is so ‘real’ that he doesn’t even have a proper…

  • Blooming weeds!

    It is over a year since my last post and l’Orto di Casa Cecconi has a new home, in the Netherlands. A rather beautiful, large patch of land adjacent to a nature reserve and lake, it came with a big shed, more of a house really… The space is divided in two parts: a mature,…

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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