Quality control

Here are our quality supervisors (senior and junior, middle one taking the pic) in action checking the weldings on the new water tank...

Weekly update

I must admit - in between office hours, planting, Easter holidays and all, I got a bit lazy and left the blog on hold. Work is going on well, thank you, with close to 1000 plants enjoying themselves under a nice spring rain (finally!). Open air works are now on minimum due to the much awaited rain, but there is still a lot of paperwork and preparations for the remaining activities to take care of. We (more or less) defined the positions for the various cultivars (here's a general note about cultivars if you should wish to take a look), much of the irrigation system is ready to be mounted, pruning of the older olive trees is almost done. So, what's on the to-do wishlist? I'd like to take a closer look on deficit irrigation - a good friend from the local agricultural association is preparing me next month's reading program. I'd also like to start building some ladybird nests with my little daughter and have her paint them before putting them around the fields. Well, I could continue with the list...

On a sidenote - the wild asparagus has finally started to pop up! I hope the rain that's pouring right now will improve the vegetation, but so far due to the drought it was almost impossible to get hold of them in sufficient number even for a single portion. Anyway, the other day I noticed one in the middle of a field just reclaimed from its quasi-forestal state:

 So I went for some early spring harvesting. Usually picking wild asparagus is a tricky business, as they grow in the middle of the bushes, so scratched hands and fingers full of spines is the price one has to pay to get hold of those sprouts (and that's only after you manage to spot them, which is an art on its own). One of the upsides of having just brought back to use several square meteres of fields is that the asparagus now can be picked without the usual hassle, easily, whilst you stroll around...

Anyway, after having managed to find a sufficient number of them, the best way to hommage this plant is to cut into small pieces some young onions

add some good extra vergine

 and the wild asparagus (of course, after you washed it and got rid of the woody parts at the basis of the sprout)

After five to ten minutes on a medium fire, the asparagus is ready to be eaten, either with some pasta, in a frittata, with a steak... I swear on the frittata anyway. And some fresh white wine.

P.S. Some may have noticed that there are some intruders in the last picture: it's another asparagus-like sprout that I think is called black bryony - please correct me if wrong. A bit bitter (excuse the pun) than the asparagus, but de gustibus...

Planting started!

It was a quite demanding weekend, with the test planting taking place on Saturday (we still need to tweak a bit the operations to make them the most time-effective as possible). We had to basically

a) coordinate the Cat digging the right size holes (not too big, not too small) at the right place (downwind from the most stressful wind for the young olives, behind the supporting pole)

b) coordinate the people placing and tieing up the olive to the pole, covering the hole, placing the white textile on the trunk (it's a trap for non-winged bugs)

c) and water them

Since we worked the whole day I did not manage to take a lot of pictures, but basically here are the two rows we planted by noon (about 100 plants):

Of course, we still need to work a bit on the terrain, but there was no rain at all this winter so the ground is hard as rock!

Just FYI, the cultivar planted here is called Rossignola, tipical for this region (but I promise I'll develop on cultivars planted and on the different olive oil they produce later on!)

But it did not end there. We still have about two thousand plants waiting at home, and they have their needs too! So in the evening it was watering time -  I guess the olives were grateful