Olive update

Distant field planted,
closer field about to be planted

Thursday was the first cloudy day in quite a while and threatened rain in the afternoon. We knew that the planting of olive trees was going ahead full speed and we wanted to take a look how things were proceeding before everything turned to mud; a day of rain was predicted for Friday.

We drove south without Dominique who was back in Montepulciano getting ready for a business trip unrelated to his olives. (We imagine that he was thinking about his olive trees while he was packing up.) 

After a little searching we found the narrow dirt road that led off the highway to the Santolivo orchard and marked the location in our GPS so we could find the spot again.

A pile of olive trees to be
planted on a terrace

A lot of progress has been made. The distant field has been planted. Closer fields have the plants nearly laid out for planting. The closest fields still have the little olive trees in piles waiting to distributed and planted.

After the trees have been planted grasses will be planted as a ground cover and to encourage the insects that protect the olive trees and olives from insect pests. In three or four years there will be a harvest from these new plants.

Time to pack up. We'll return to Florence Saturday morning and fly to Washington DC early Monday morning. We're reluctant to leave and looking forward to seeing friends and family at home. Hmmmm, that pretty conflicted, isn't it?