OH FOR A SHOTGUN!

All year the little pump down the bore in the olive grove works away filling the tank to irrigate the olive grove.  A lot of time is taken to prune, weed and mulch under trees and slash between the rows.  Seventy trees are carefully watched and nurtured and then.......   this time of year in come the Twenty-Eights, so named because of their call.  This very colourful green bird is an absolute pest and delights in ringbarking trees, snipping off the tops of the grape vines and stripping the olive trees and fruit trees of fruit.  Some people in the district resort to a shot gun, but we wrap the trees in white netting and they look like little ghosts up on the hill.

The last image is the fig tree.  It is loaded with fruit which will ripen in January.  You can just see 2 of the olive trees wrapped up in the background.  This is the best crop we have had of olives, so we have selected the best 12 trees and netted them and hope the birds will be happy to destroy the other 50!  I am experimenting with the fig tree, trying to keep it low to the ground.  I cut out the middle stem when it was small and am trying to train the branches to grow horizontally.  At the moment I have the longest branch weighed down with a coke bottle full of water.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw an orchard of citrus fruit where they had gone over the complete orchard with a hedge trimmer to keep the trees at a manageable height.  I will be doing this with my trees next year.  This year I pruned them to size, but they are growing vigourously now and cutting the tops off may be the answer.

Everything is an experiment.  I don't really know how much water the trees need, and they rely totally on irrigation through to next April/May.  It is just "wait and see" and if it doesn't work this year, make changes next year.