For the first time in three years the garden’s olive trees are covered in fruit. Since buying the house in 2015 the trees have grown wild as we haven’t had the time, nor the tools, to keep them in check. We’d assumed that the lack of fruit was a result of this neglect, although 2016’s crop was pretty terrible across Italy. So the abundance of fruit this year has come as a surprise.
Because the trees have been allowed to grow, many of the olives are out of reach of the ground, so when we return in the autumn for the harvest we’ll need ladders to reach most of it.