The olive orchard

The where? I didn’t even know I had an olive orchard. Well I do now. Five trees make an orchard and I am poised to order two more trees.

The previous owners had planted two olives on the property; and they have grown well. Despite not being staked and leaning at a rather sad angle.   My plan is to have two more trees planted right next to this one specimen. And then hopefully I can give this poor one a radical prune to get it back into the upright shape.   No olive oil for a bit I guess while these trees grow.   But the four ones that I planted last autumn are coming along. Slowly.

But right now it’s the hard landscaping of the area that causes the most pleasure. Nicolas has been working away at the pile of stones. And this is the result. A fine and handsome small wall right in front of the house.

Not bad when you consider that this area is just a holding bank for weeds and clinging wild clematis. No, don’t get excited; they don’t even have interesting flowers. Just choking long tendrils that try and reach the trunk of the olive tree.   And there was so much of the wall rubble showing that it’s a relief to have real soil on it at last.   You can see how these terraces get built: just chuck rubbish on it in the form of broken tiles and rocks, add some soil, and let it run amok.

When I get some time, I shall remove the scrawling soil and weeds from the rock directly in front of the house. And then it will be neat indeed.

And speaking of which: here is a small picture of the potager paths. I bought some extra bark chips on my journey up to the house today.   Tomorrow I shall be able to take more pictures of the whole finished project.   The light was just too low in the sky to do it justice this afternoon.