I am sure that many of you reading this believe that olives like all other food come from Tesco wrapped in clean plastic packets and therefore may scream "yuk" as you read what follows. Yes, my dear sweet wife I am thinking about you and all the other latte drinking townies out there. Those of us who grew up in the boonies know that producing food is a hell of a lot easier if you have loads of shit ( i.e manure) to boost the process. I have no manure yet although my first batch of humanure from the eco-loo should be ready next year. But I have something even better...wee wee.
Urine contains not only stacks of nitrogen but also potassium and phosphorus which, essentially, are the key ingredients of those plastic bags of sanitised fertiliser folks buy at the garden centres. And thus, as a man, I am in a position to do what a woman might find harder and provide daily doses of loving fertiliser to my trees.
I can see right now some of the City dwellers among you making cheap jokes about the peppery taste of the oil from our olives here at the Greek Hovel in Kambos.Thank god you don't know how many of the organic vegetables you eat at your fancy, twee, restaurants are grown in organic material. That is to say manure.
The problem is that while I might occassionally treat a tree on the far edge of the property if I am caught short while pruning, most of the times when I am in a position to dispense treats I am sitting in the hovel. As such the trees in the immediate vicinity have been very well blessed. Those further away will be lucky to be blessed once a summer in this manner. But it all helps.