The Nets Are Finally Out!

2013 - 'Anno si'

The feeling of satisfaction when the
final olive tree has been
netted is immense, but
that's the 'easy bit' of olive season over.

Not that it feels easy at the time - it's not just
a question of unfurling the nets & staking
them under the trees; each net has to be
checked painstakingly for holes & each hole sewn because even the smallest one will allow the olives to slip through.

We started putting the nets out on Monday, hopeful of finishing the job on Tuesday but it was a bigger & more time consuming job than we remembered from 2011 (2012 was our 'anno no' when very little fruit was on the trees so we didn't bother harvesting).

Nets laid out for staking

So we took a rest day on Tuesday, with the intention of finishing the job on Wednesday, but Wednesday proved to be a day of heavy showers so no more nets went out until today. We managed to stake out all of the nets in the olive grove before lunch, which just left us 2 trees to net this afternoon. These particular trees are on the edge of the driveway so a little more inventiveness is required - we can hardly have nets staked across the drive!

Final 2 trees

  And now we can keep an eye on just how many olives drop into the nets over the next week or so before we begin to hand harvest in earnest - that's the backbreaking part!

Il Sogno is ready for the olive harvest