Addressing many years of neglect.
Over the last ten years at least there has been little focus on the olive grove. Trees near the house were maintained but the bulk of trees were left to their own devices. These were/are now overgrown with bramble and ivy and far too tall for effective harvesting and oil production.
The grove itself
The grove is situated ona hill side above the village of Segromigno in Monte. Most of the hill side is terraced and would have been a vineyard in the past. We do not know when the land was converted to olives but juging by a girth of some trees this would have been well over a hundred years ago.
There are approximatelky 200 trees with two variety, Frantoio and Leccino, both good for oil production but too small as eating olives. The grove is divided into named areas.
Most of the trees are far to large. The trees should typically be no more than two to three meters high to allow for harvesting. The rationale is …
The Frantoio story
The key distinction between the two variety of trees is that the Frantoio trees have four trunks with an old core in the middle. In 1987 there was a severe frost that killed al the Frantoio. It takes a lot to totally kill an olive tree and four of the suckers that grew from the original core were left to develop into trees. This dates the Frantoio trees. The Leccino trees have single trunks with an impressive girths. Based on the girth we estmate the trees to be well over hundred years old.
Spring 2023
Approximately a third of the trees were heavily pollarded by a local contractor. This seemed to be brutal with very little left expect four almost bare trunks for the Frantoio and a a single trunk for the Leccino.
One or two lower branches were left for sone trees but for others there were only bare trunks. It was difficult watching them working without having a sense of panic as to what are we doing.
The main branches were cut to size and piled by each tree. The remaining material just left institue. This was as agreed. We would then gather the wood with the smaller stuff left on the ground and mown over when the grass was cut. This might not have been the best strategy although progress has been made through the year.
The wood is good, actually excellent long burning fire wood, and needs to be processes. The first phase was consolidating the logs into local piles to get the wood away from the trees and be able to clean up the trees and mow the grass.
A woodshed has been built next to the house. This will be for next season’s wood and will probably only take a third of what’s out there. We’ll need to designate further areas for wood piles and get them off the ground and under cover
Summer & Autumn 2023 – a period of growth
We’re told that the trees would become productive after three years. Looking at the bare trunks that is difficult to image.
But for most of the trees the growth has been amazing. The secatuers give a sense of the growth over eight months.
A few trees have not responded well. Hopefully this season may be better for them.
It’s not just the growth of a single branchlet, but the number of suckers that sprouted on each trunk was equally amazing.
The before and after pictures of the same tree. The new branches and suckers have been reduced to three ot four per trunk removing those growing inwards even where this was strong growth. Thisnow starts to shape the trees for the future. No doubt more will need to be removed but that will be as this year’s growth starts.
Ivy and bramble is an issue as these take away light and damage the trunks. Keeping the trees clear will be an on going task. We do not want to use any herbicides anywhere. This is against our ethos, so this a manual effort.
Over the years some of the trees have become very overgrown with ivy and bramble, so a fair bit of effort is needed for these. With the worst of the trees all you see is bramble and ivy with some olive twigs poking out the top
This is an olive tree totally overgrown.
Below some of the work thats been done in the autumn. Much more to do.
These trees will be left to recover this year and be part of the final tranche of pollarding.
Thirty of the trees in the fields adjacent to the house resulted in a large woodpile ready for processing and stacking into the woodshed. Hopefully once cut to length this will fit and provide wood for next winter. If not there is much more still to be gathered.
Winter/Spring 2024 – the cycle begins again
The key activities for February to March are:
Collecting wood
The partially consolidated wood piles need to be moved to more permanent woodpiles. We’ve built a woodshed near the house but this will be far too small for all our wood, so the plan is to to have two or three piles in the fields that can be covered with tarpaulins
Processing the wood for fire wood.
When the trees were polarded the logs were cut into longer lengths than you’d want for firewood. This now needs to be cut to side and stored. The focus is on the pile in the car park!
The wood is hard so quite a strain on the chainsaw. Some of the branches are gnarly and bent. Not the easiest to cut into firewood. The offcuts, too short or twiested fro firewood, we’re keeping for the pizza oven and BBQs.
Maintaining the 2023 pollarded trees
Work does not stop. Although all suckers were removed end of summer, these are once again sprouting up with vengeance. There’s the on-going task of removing these, preferably before they get too large. These can then be left on the field and mown to break them down
Pollarding the next tranche of trees
Depending on resources the next 80 trees will be pollarded this year. Once cut the process of consolidating the logs and getting the rest ready for mowing starts – repetition of last year. Local contractors will be used for the pollarded but helpers will be needed to move and stack wood.