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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  • 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,…

  • Bench grafting

    While I did do some field grafting and budding at Wisley, I had never done any bench grafting. The opportunity to practise, however has come now, as I am studying to complete my RHS level 3 Diploma in the Principles and Practices of Horticulture, and grafting is an examinable skill. Grafting is mainly done at the…

  • Glass cutting

    More panes on the ground than on the frame! With my newest plot I inherited a rather wrecked glasshouse. I don’t seem to have been overexcited about it, as that is pretty much the only picture I took of it, although I did take some pictures of plants around it, and there are pretty daffs!…

  • Pruning

    As a kid, I remember coming home from school and some plant or other in the garden that was lookin great in the morning would have been hacked horribly, its dignity lost, possibly at risk of never coming back. That would see me fuming with my father, the perpetrator. I knew nothing about plants back…

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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