Olive tree diseases and their control

Listed are the four main diseases which can affect olive trees in Cyprus and the Mediterranean area:

Olive Knot - (Pseudamonas Savastanoi) are rough swellings caused by bacterial infection and which can develop on wounded area on the trees branches, trunk or leaves. Cut out any diseased area at the first signs of the disease. This disease and all the others mentioned can be reduced by providing good growing conditions and by regular pruning to maintain airflow and sunlight entry to all parts of the tree. Avoid pruning if wet weather is expected and ensure all pruning tools are disinfected before use.

Olive Fruit Fly - fruit fly larvae feed on olives, if you want organic olives you have to accept some damage or the alternative is inorganic chemicals. However, there are some experiments currently being undertaken to develop biological traps which will suit organic growers.

Brown or Black Olive Scale - caused by insects which excrete a sticky and shiny scale on leaves which reduces the trees productivity. Cut out damaged areas and burn and deter the insects by pruning to keep an open and airy structure to the tree. This problem is however very rare in healthy well pruned trees.

Peacock Spot also known as Olive Leaf Spot - A common disease caused by a fungus which leaves sooty blotches on leaves which turn into black circular spots, causing the leaves to prematurely fall. Burn all diseased leaves and ensure you collect all fallen leaves to burn.

Pruning Mature Olive Trees

The Cypriot tradition is to prune mature olive trees, although this can be done any time of the year, after the November/December harvest. The goals of pruning are to promote healthy growth; improve the qaullity and quantity of olive yields; maximize light  entry to the tree by thinning out and to cut out damaged, diseased or overlapping branches.

We have just pruned our trees and after asking for advice and checking  information available we came to the conclusion that whatever way you undertake the task the tree will grow regardless without much ill affect. You will need good pruning shears and a sharp hand saw to undertake the job.

Our pruning's are not wasted, we allow the branches to dry out over the summer months and use the small branches and twigs for kindling and the larger ones for firewood.

Frugal green tomato curry

We being the frugal and thrifty types do not like waste of any kind, especially when it comes to food, be it cooked or uncooked. Some of our thrifty practices are cooking from scratch, turning leftovers into soups, baking our own bread, cakes and biscuits and making whatever we can from jams, to wine to marmalade.

Yesterday we cleared the last of the tomato plants from the vegetable beds and ended up with quite a few green tomatoes. The most obvious use is to make them into a chutney or pickle but after searching the internet we found a variety of recipes to use our green tomatoes. The recipes ranged from a green tomato bread to a cake or a curry. We decided to  adapt the curry recipes to one which made use of the ingredients we have available.

The ingredients we used were:

Enough olive oil for frying
4 garlic cloves - chopped finely
1 onion finely chopped
2 finely chopped peppers
250g of cubed potato
250g cored, green tomato chopped finely
Salt to taste
Curry powder depending on the hotness you prefer
Chopped coriander

Method:

Heat the olive oil and fry the chopped garlic and onion until golden brown

Add all the other ingredients (except for the coriander) and cook for 5 minutes - stirring occasionally

Pour in a cup of water and stir, bring to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes

Once cooled slightly stir in the chopped coriander and serve with rice. A tasty meal on a cold evening.

Sowing beans and peas

It was a chilly start to the day but it turned into a beautiful morning and we have been busy in the garden planting four deep beds with peas and beans. We added a sprinkling of lime to each bed, as legumes like a pH of between 6-7, and the soil is much improved in structure with the addition of manure over the last eighteen months. Straw mulches on previous crops have also broken down to improve what was a very clayey soil. The soil is now quite friable and very moist from the rain we have had recently, all of which should help the legumes germinate quickly.

We planted two beds of broad beans, one with french beans and one with peas. Dwarf French beans are usually sown in March but we are experimenting with a November sowing and we will have to see how they develop.

Broad beans are sown 4-5cm deep and 25cm apart in all directions and should germinate in 7-14 days Stakes are needed to support the plants as with the weight of the pods the plants become quite heavy. The tops are usually pinched out when sufficient pods have formed to deter blackfly who love the soft tops. If blackfly do become a problem spray with soapy water, using a eco washing-up liquid. Harvesting is usually undertaken in 140-175 days, small pods can be enjoyed whole or left to mature and dried for later use. Yields usually average 5kg from a 3 meter row.

Dwarf French beans are sown 2.5cm deep, 15cm apart and in rows 45cm apart. It helps to mulch the bean plants once a reasonable size to help retain moisture. The beans are usually harvested in 56-70 days after sowing when the pods are about 8cm long. Regular picking helps to extend harvesting . Yields are usually 6kg from a 3 meter row.

Peas are sown 2.5cm deep and 7.5cm in all directions. Peas enjoy a fertile, deep worked and good draining soil. Ours must be ideal, as we got a very good crop last year. Netting needs to provide to support the peas. Harvesting is usually in 12-16 weeks and regular picking extends the harvest. You can usually expect a 4.5kg harvest from a 3m row.

Remember - a garden is a good friend you can visit everyday.

Our seeds are in and now we await the wonder of nature. Back into the garden this afternoon to sow one more bed of peas, one of dwarf French beans.and some onion sets for spring onions.

Visit to Olive Mill

We took our olive harvest to the mill yesterday, along with quite a few other people, and waited for four hours for our olives to be processed. However, the time passed very quickly and we enjoyed watching the olives being processed and the smell of the mill iwas wonderful. We didn't know there were so many different varieties of olives and they ranged from very large to some very tiny ones which apparently produce a good ratio of olive oil.. Apparently there are thousands of cultivars and in Italy alone over 300 different varieties have been identified.

The weight of our olives was 333kg and we got 50lt of olive oil, with a ratio of 6kg to 1lt which was not as good as last year but the oil looks a lot darker and tastes better. We were so tired when we got home, that a proper taste test to compare 2010 to 2011 will have to wait until the morning. With 50lt and some 20lt remaining from last year we should be self sufficient in olive oil even if we get a very poor harvest next year.

Olive Harvest 2011

We started our 2011 olive harvest on Tuesday 22nd November We learnt quite a few lessons from our first harvest last year. We started last year using our hands to harvest olives but after a short while, and after many cuts and scratches, we purchased two hand held rakes. These permit a quicker and less painless harvest but the only drawback is a lot of time is needed after harvesting to remove the twigs, leaves and detach olives still attached to small branches.

However, we will not clean the olives as thoroughly as last year, when we removed virtually every leaf, only to find when we got to the mill that some people hardly clean their's at all as the machinery removes nearly all the debris before processing.

Another lesson we learnt since last year was to not pick olives that had fallen from the tree, as on investigation we have found that the olives start deteriorating quite quickly after falling and this effects the acidity level of the olive oil.

The biggest plus this harvest has been our purchase of good quality netting, Last year we used a thick plastic sheet and found that that the wind kept blowing the sheet in all over the place and however careful we were it kept tearing and splitting.

We started on Tuesday morning at 8.00 and finished 16.00 and harvested 3 trees which are in a field some 200 meters from the house. We were unable to drive any closer than 75 meters away, so this entailed a lot of carrying from the car and back again. We harvested 140kg and with the ladder, netting and everything else- we spent quite sometime getting the car loaded. This was a big increase on last years harvest when we only got 3kg from the same trees which must have been harvested by somebody by mistake or more likely deliberately.

We started Wednesday morning at 7.00 on the four trees in our garden and finished harvesting at 16.00 but had harvested 171kg,

In 2010 the four tress in our garden produced 214kg so this years total was 34kg less. But each year some trees provide a reduced harvest and others are more laden. For example, one tree had 93kg last year but only  16kg this year, whilst another only had 3kg last year but provided 24kg this year.

We started the cleaning process but will have to finish off the remaining half before going to the mill tomorrow.

Baking Day

We started baking this morning at 9.00 am and have just finished. We made 18 olive rolls, 13 sesame topped rolls, a chocolate cake, 11 Cypriot squash pastries and 5 Cornish pasties.

We have already eaten two delicious Cornish pasties, so there are only three in the picture. A hard mornings work but lots of rolls to keep us in lunches for quite some time.

The recipe for Cypriot squash pastries was in an earlier blog - for the recipe go to http://cyprusgardener.blogspot.com/2011/07/cypriot-squash-pastries-recipe.html The rolls were made using our bread recipe - http://cyprusgardener.blogspot.com/2011/07/make-your-own-bread-and-pitta-bread.html. The Cornish pasties were made with shortcrust pasty and have a filling of minced lamb, cubed potato, carrot and pumpkin with sliced onions and seasoning. The chocolate cake is made with cocoa powder and will be sliced in two to add a chocolate filling.