It’s mid-February, and the weather in Corinth is quite wintery. This winter is cooler and rainier than the past two years, bringing hope for the upcoming growing season. Olive trees need a certain number of cold hours to bud properly – as our regular readers already know. Still, many trees have not fully recovered from the stress of the long, hot summer. The good winter weather must continue!

Now is the time to fertilize the trees with goat manure, so that the nutrients can seep into the soil with the rainwater and be available to the trees in spring. Additionally, it is time to mulch around the trees to help them better withstand the summer heat. A thick mulch carpet insulates the roots from the heat and helps preserve soil moisture.

However, mulch in large quantities is difficult to find, and mulching is also labor-intensive. Therefore, it won’t be possible to mulch all the trees. Still, a satisfying number of about 105 trees will receive the full care – both fertilizing and mulching. We’re excited to see how these trees will compare to the others.