January: Feed the Soil

This year we spent both New Year's Eve and New Year's Day working at the olive grove. It felt like a statement of intent - a commitment from us to our trees. To spend time with them and learn their ways in order to better understand our role and how we can provide for their needs.

Our focus for January is soil. We have a limited window of time, as any improvements need to be made well before the rains finish. Last year, it didn't rain at all in February, so we were anxious to get on with whatever work was needed. We completed a soil analysis last year - diligently taking samples from different spots across the grove - but we didn't manage to translate the findings into meaningful action. Sometimes there are so many decisions to make and so many potential paths of action that we miss the time window afforded by the weather altogether. This is getting easier as we go through the annual cycle, and this year, we are finally in a position to work on the soil that feeds our trees.

The soil varies dramatically across our grove - from bright red and sandy on the south facing slopes to heavy clay lower down the valley. In general - as you might expect from an abandoned olive grove - the quality is poor and, as the soil analysis showed, is lacking in most nutrients. Since olive trees are native to the Mediterranean they are very hardy and are used to growing on low-nutrient and stony soils. That said, they do have certain basic requirements that we were trying to meet.

Our first priority was to apply Boron, an essential micro-nutrient that olive trees needs for flower fertility, germination and fruit setting. Not enough boron at the right time can be catastrophic, resulting in unripe fruits falling off the trees and losing much of the harvest. We have been told that application of Boron to the soil should happen every 3-5 years, and since we are going into our 3rd year and had not done this job yet, it seemed essential.

Our second priority was to add organic matter around the base of the trees and sow green manures on top. These will provide slow release input of nutrients to the trees over the coming months. Adding organic matter - essentially partially decomposed plant materials - is a miracle in that it improves both sandy soils (by improving its ability to hold water and prevent loss of nutrients) and clay soils (by increasing the aeration of the soil and making it easier for the plant to obtain the nutrients from the soil). Left to its own devices nature naturally adds organic matter to the soil through the cycle of falling leaves and plant death and decomposition. In farmed environments, this cycle is typically broken, and the organic matter becomes severely depleted. Part of our job now is to add it back to help improve the soil and stimulate microorganism activity.

One of the consequences of the extended drought last summer was that the olive harvest started and finished late. The knock-on effect for us was that there was no-one available to do any of the labour we needed and so we took on the task of applying the boron and organic matter ourselves. This meant several weekends of hard physical work digging the soil around each tree, and wheel-barrowing sacks up and down slopes. The positives - aside from a generally good workout - are that we got to know the soil around our trees intimately and have learnt the different characteristics of each neighbourhood. We could feel firsthand where the soil was richer close to the borders where we have oak trees that drop their leaves each year, and we could observe the different species that were growing in each area. We were amazed to find many varieties of mushrooms, abundant wild greens and herbs. We discovered wild carrots, wild aparagus, horta (radikia), lemon balm and many more that we are learning as we go. The joy we experienced during the days in the olive grove were well worth the pain of the physical labour and strengthened our commitment to spend more time there observing the little details.

Next on the to-do-list is a leaf analysis to see what nutrients the trees have available. This will help us put together the recipe for the foliar spray that we will apply in February to help the trees gather their energy for the next cycle of olive production.