About us
Managed from immemorial time with methods of cultivation which product a lowest impact on the natural environment, the farm is in A.I.A.B. (Italian Association for Organic Agriculture) organic system from 1996, by Dino Saggese, an agricultural economist who believe in this kind of technicians. Its extension is about 6 hectares in which they are cultivated oranges and lemons, olives and cereals, insight the Gargano's National Park, in a zone considered "a protect area of natural, landscaping cultural value, with the bigger degree of human presence".
The farm is separated in two different parts: the first unit, more extensive, is near Ischitella, a little village next Varano's Lake: it is composed by a sowable land of 1,31 hectares; by an olive groove of 2,03 hectares, about 50 years old, of plant of typical cultivar named "Ogliarola Garganica", "Leccino" and "Coratina", and by a vineyard of 1,35 hectares which products typical Italian grape named "Troia", "Sangiovese" and "Montepulciano". A side of this ground is in an area of remarkable archaeological interest for the presence of ancients remains of a burial, aged V - IV B.C. The second unit is in the Rodi Garganico's protect area: for its typical ancient citrus is called "Oasi Agrumaria del Gargano". It's used for growing a citrus garden and it's specialized in the lemon called "Femminello del Gargano", in the typical Golden Orange, called "Bionda del Gargano" and in the Crunch Orange "Duretta del Gargano" that take its name from its crunch pulp (this kind of variety is very rare and sought), it's managed even in traditional irrigation system: you can see little depressions around the trees, where the men drive the water that some time ago come from the springs of the Umbra Forest, (now they use the water of the Water Public Consortium); the same springs' water, that many years ago and for centuries, the inhabits used on the morning to make function the ancient mills for the wheat in the surroundings, and on the night to give water to the citrus garden of which the area was rich some time ago. The garden is renewed by planting young plants of bitter orange (Citrus Aurantium is the botanic name, Melangolo is the local name and it was the first variety of citrus which appeared in this Apulia's area, maybe brought from Arabic peoples), to be grafted after 2 -3 years with typical oranges and lemons plants , or by a regeneration cutting, regraft on adults plants of radical shoot of bitter orange.
The citrus garden is delimited by live windbreaks of ilexes, laurels and trellis, and, because of the ground is on a slope, by wide terracing of dry little walls of calcareous stones, build always even to reduce the risk of erosion. The rest of the surface, on the side less northern and eastern winds facing, is protected by centuries olives trees of Ogliarola Garganica used in this case even as windbreaks. The windbreaks are an ancient characteristic, not too much know, of this kind of Italian landscape: they shared in an harmonic squares the citrus garden, so to compound the traditional green chessboard: every square called in Italian language "quadro", token its name from the prevailing typical fruit trees cultivated in every of them (for example the fig's square or the strawberry tree's square); this name was important to distinguish where the men were to work. The garden is arranged on many terraces in front of the sea; on the eastern side it's delimited by a natural valley in which, a little rivers of public water, named "Vallone di Vico", flows.
For the presence of an ancient rough country build and because of the citrus garden is in a very important area for its history, tourism and nature it's the unit of the farm where you can make rural tourism and where you can make a tour.
There aren't factories and smog next the farm either too much traffic on the streets in the surroundings.
