Giving the olive groves some natural balance

Here at Casa de Olivos, in rural Spain, we spend many an hour watching the local olive growers tend to their groves while we try to learn what we can about their art. Olives have a long history here, and Traiguera is at the heart of the Maestrazgo region which has the greatest density of olive trees in Castellon province. We visit the ancient olive trees too, some dating back almost two thousand years, and many over 1000 years old and marvel at them, still producing olives today.  We have much to learn, but it seems we’re in the right place to be taught!

One aspect of traditional olive cultivation that jarred with us though is the practice of cleaning the ground so it is bare earth that can then be smoothed flat. There are a number of reasons for this, one of the main ones being that it is easy to harvest olives off the ground when the earth is weed-free and level, but there are a number of drawbacks too.

Whilst grasses and other green cover can compete with the trees for water, they offer enough benefits that we felt the green floor was best for us and in keeping with our sustainable tourism venture. Once established, the roots will help open-up a rather heavy clay soil, keeping it aerated and allowing rainfall to penetrate more easily and to greater depths. Erosion from wind and rain will reduce and ensure the most fertile soil fractions stay where the trees can benefit from them. And we chose a native seed blend that included some clover and medick which constantly add nitrogen to the soil that the trees need as an essential growth nutrient.

So in the twilight of 2021 we hooked up the chisel plough to Little John and got stuck in! The groves had become wildly undulating moonscapes, riven deeply where surface water had run-off after heavy rains. We needed to end up with a much more even finish to make harvesting olives as easy as possible in the future, as well as for a better aesthetic.

The limits of our equipment became clear, and whilst the tractor and plough could lift the soil and roughly level it with a heavy sleeper dragged behind, the sort of finish we were after was only going to happen by hand. So, barrows at the ready, we set about raking off tonnes of stony, weedy soil and corralling the earth to something approaching a seedbed. Blistered and sore after days of raking we were ready to seed just days before Christmas. It felt like the perfect end to our year, with the seeds of 2022 quite literally sown. All we had to do was wait for the rain to come.

It was March before we saw a drop of rain, and we’d started to wonder if our poor little grass and clover seeds would still be there, let alone whether they’d grow. But the rains were perfect, coming steady and prolonged so the water soaked in deeply rather than running off. By April our groves had taken on the merest hint of green!! We were beyond excited, and watched impatiently every day for signs of more growth.

Choosing native species was vital, since the climate here is so hot and dry, and rainfall generally comes in heavy deluges. We needed vegetation that would put deep roots down early so they had the resources needed to survive a Castellon summer. We now have a lush green floor emerging on two groves that were previously bare earth. Whilst they are a little patchy now, we’ll let everything seed and naturally thicken up over time. 

This new green floor will not be ploughed up regularly as is the case with the bare soil groves, and the soil structure will benefit hugely over time from not being pulverised and becoming so fragile. And the flowers, seeds and natural cover will help to increase biodiversity, encouraging more insect species to the site which in turn will help keep pest species in check without the use of synthetic chemicals, vital to us for our own organic olive oil production.

We hope all the benefits that our green floor brings outweigh the competition for water, and that maybe we have a template here that other growers look to in the years to come. For us it’s a big step towards our Be Kind philosophy that we use to guide our sustainable development. We’ll keep you posted on how our green experiment goes, but why not stay at Casa de Olivos and grab a seat in the shade of an olive tree and judge for yourself.

Claire & Ed