Feed the Tree....
This week I’v had a ‘Masterclass’ in olive pruning with the great olive supremo, Danielle, the go-to-guru when you need anything tree related in or around Cortona.
He’s quite a guy to work with and has kept me entertained all week with the ‘banter di l’olive’.
Lesson 1: You can’t prune in the rain, that’s the first thing I learnt and my god we have had the rain. So we waited for a sunny day and got cracking with the ‘potatura dell ‘olive’...pruning of the olive tree. We have 250 trees in the Olivetti on grass terraces for harvesting olives in November in Tuscany to make the oil. Now in Spring, the trees need to be pruned and completed this needs to be completed by May 1st.
My mentor told me to get into the middle of the tree and start with the ‘succhioni’s’...the suckers, as the middle needs to be clear and airy and these little fellas suck up all the goodness needed by the tree. The ‘polloni’ need to be removed too, a separate name for the sucker growth on the trunks. In the meantime Danielle has a set of bolt croppers over his shoulder and is getting stuck into the outer branches with his battery powered ‘Cesoie’...secateurs.
All I can hear from the inside
of the tree is him muttering “Questa Qui’...this one....snip, ....”taglia questo ...cut this...”lashia questo”....leave this.
It’s all about the shape, you need to fashion a vase shape with an evenly distributed canopy and he definitely has the eye and the experience. You also need to remove branches that crowd other branches but without creating holes and your’e always considering what can go and what needs to grow for the next year. The growth of the olive is prolific but don’t be cutting willy-nilly, study the shape to see if all the branch can come out...don’t be cutting halfway if it’s a bit “molto alto”...too high, as this is frowned upon by this man. Branches that are growing the wrong way are history, radical cuts are made to anything that dares to grow too high for the pickers or he refers to as “bruto ”....ugly!...he studies with his eyes and then holds his hands together and moves them up and down with the words “ it’s not beautiful” in English, for my benefit and laughs.
I watch his artwork....it’s impressive!...and I learn a lot!
He cares about the tree, not himself...he wants it to look it’s best, I can see that in him.
The rule is that when you finished, a bird should be able to fly from one side and exit the other without touching a leaf....a nice idea, eh?
At the end we are left with piles and piles and piles of pruning and clippings....
But we haven’t finished....
The next day the extendable Styhl comes out and the trusty ‘Husquavana’ as we tackle the bigger trees, taking overhanging boughs off oaks and generally lopping owt that he doesn’t like the look of, to let more light to the olivetti.
I haven’t been to Syria but when we are finished I probably think it resembles Raqqa!
I now have days and days of clearing up, cutting logs, mulching and bonfires....and the grass is growing fast....!
Next job is to nip down the Consortzio to buy a couple of hundred kilos of fertilizer to feed the trees....
Of course this is a perfectly apt track and a great indie classic from my upbringing from a debut album by ‘Belly’, with the lovely ‘Tanya’ on lead, ex Breeders and Throwing Muses....
“So take your hat off boy when you’re talking to me and be there when I feed the tree!”
The song is a metaphor about commitment and respect, so it’s here for you to enjoy!
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