Update from the olive grove: fire and insects (part one)...

Well, where should I start from? Our continuous checks are going on and probably in the next few days we'll have to battle the Jasmine Moth again. The fall in temperature and the rain of the last few days have been a blessing for our not so friendly cohabitant, and the population is slowly but steadily picking up from its normal number to proper mass scale invasion again.

Plus, we had two events, one of which is bad for sure whilst the other still needs to be assessed properly.

There was a number of wildfires sprouting here and there during the summer - one of the biggest in our region brushed our biggest orchards but few of the smaller ones were not that lucky. So far, we completely lost to the fire about 70 young trees, with at least twice this number being shocked by the temperature, but with some chance of surviving.

This is the view of the non cultivated land on the approachs to our grove:

Whilst this is how the burnt young trees look like:

Product preview!

It's still to early to discuss about oil, but I think I didn't put up that many pictures of actual olives, did I? Yes, they are doing well (except for the non-irrigated ones, which suffer the draught albeit having received a fair amount of water brought to them by the undersigned...)

So, here's a short preview of what's growing on our trees (if Picasa, which is a bit cranky today,  decides to show them, otherwise you may think I shoot in pitch dark without flash...)



And another prize on offer - a bottle of organic olive oil to the first who can tell the cultivars in the slideshow above! Good luck!

Edit: Picasa slideshow is still not working well, so I'll at least leave you with some flowers I shot in the fields few days ago:

The Jasmine Moth Loves Olives Too...

After a long evasion from my blogger duties (quite an active summer, I confess...) here I am back to keep you, my dear persisent reader, updated on the last insect whose eating&mating activities exceeded damage tolerance level. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Jasmine Moth (Margaronia Unionalis, or Palpita unionalis, some scientific stuff here (in italian) and a short wiki here).

To our, and to a number of other olive growers disappointment,  the Jasmine Moth does not only like to feast on jasmine plants as its name may justly induce you to believe, but on olives too, and it's a gargantuan eater nonetheless. If left unchecked, it can eat all the young branch springs and damage, if not completely reverse, a year of growth.

How does he achieve such a feat you may ask? Well, this small moth lays eggs on the young, tender new branches like this one:

After a few days, a larvae develops from the deposited eggs and starts feeding on the said tender young leaves, until reaching the lenght of 7-8 mms whereupon it transforms itself into a moth and then it's the same process all over again.

In the meantime, what it does on the young olives looks like this:

or this

As I said, this kind of damage could hurt our olive growing plans for years to come, setting back entrance into production for years. Here is another picure

Summer soundtrack

It is the time of the year when all the old hits resuscitate for their short summer life - but if you think a bit a harder, who's the musician that really hits it spot on each summer? And on top of that, has even a literary work dedicated to?

Not many of them, I guess. Ladies and gentleman, I give you the cicada!

The wild olive trees of Sardinia

Back from one trip, and ready for another one (it's travelling June this year), I wanted to share some insights I missed during my previous visit of Sardinia.

 Should you ever decide to visit this still wild gem of the Mediterranean, try for a few moments to skip the beautiful beaches and head for some less populated and known spots - the island is willing to show so many different facets to the traveller with the time and will to see, grab and observe them.

As my personal penchant and theme of this blog are the olive tree and its fruit, it doesn't take a wild guess to know what continuously grabbed my attention: along winding roads, on top of mountains as well as along beaches and coves, the wild olive is the quiet and understated background of any Sardinia's sight. The beaches may glow with their turquoise colours or the sanguine rocks impress you with their weird shapes, but there will always be the silver reflection of the olive leaves somewhere in the background. It's like the double bass in a jazz band...

 As it has been said that a picture is worth a million words, I'll stop here and let you see what it's all about:

Going on holiday!

See you in a week!

Wild flowers

Since in my previous posts I shared some pics of the first olive flowers, it would not be fair at all if I did not share also some of the beatiful wild flowers that are still showing up in the fields. I am a bit disappointed I did not manage to shoot some of the most interesting orchids (their flowers can be seen until mid May)...