Preparation

During the winter of 2002, the lines in which the olive trees were to be planted were marked out following computer-drawn layout plans and then deep-ripped to about a metre deep on three lines a metre apart. The mineral dust and lime was spread and the rows were rotary hoed. During autumn 2002, 700 sheep were let loose on the groves for a few weeks to eat the grass and weeds and put back some manure into the soil.

On the left, rotary hoeing the lines in July 2002

The second stage of preparation involved building a nursery area to house the young trees when they arrived at the farm. A small petrol-driven pump was set up in one of the dams to provide water for a temporary irrigation system to cover the 12m by 8m nursery area.

Delays to buiding our house on the property meant that the 30cm tall trees were were not delivered until December 2002, and the irrigation system was used to water the trees three times a day throughout the hot summer. The 5,000 trees were re-potted into larger pots and kept in the nursery ready for planting in the winter of 2003. The picture on the left below show the trees shortly after arrival in the nursery in January 2003, and on the right in June 2003

The final step in preparation involved setting up the main-line and sub-line parts of irrigation system - see the Irrigation page for more specific details of this.