The Olive Fly

I thought I'd better write a bit about the olive harvest this year, or rather lack of olives to harvest!

There is a fly, funnily enough called the olive fly, which is always present but normally dormant in the ground. However, given the right conditions in September i.e. unusually hot beginning to the month followed by rain causing humidity, the fly becomes active and lays eggs in the olives. That was what happened September just gone and so when I went to look for olives to pick and brine for eating, couldn't see any without the telltale scarring which is the sign of a diseased olive.

They become wrinkled, over-ripe, split and drop off at the slightest touch/drop of rain/breath of wind. As you know we have had torrential rain and howling gales and all the trees around here are totally bald. The ground however, is black and slippery with fallen olives! The fly infected all the trees in the coastal region, however further north places such as Cordoba are fine as it wasn't quite as hot/damp in September. There are treatments for the fly, both natural and man-made, but to be effective every tree has to be treated - not really practical when a lot of land is not farmed by anyone nowadays.

It was a lovely month weather-wise but it's a big chunk of most peoples income and oil for the year gone... :(

Still, you have to look on the bright side and we have more time to prune for fire wood and more time to prepare vegetable plots and plant even more than we did last year. We still plan on growing the vegetables that are guaranteed to work, like beans, tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, chillis, garlic, peas, broad beans and courgettes but to try extras as well. We don't have much success with things like swede or parsnips but this year have sweet potato plants ready to go in for a change. If we have the seeds already or collected seed from last year, we will plant everything, even the things we haven't succeeded with previously. A few plants in completely different areas may do well one year!