I've managed to progress at a rapid enough pace with the land so far this year to be able to USE some of my olive prunings to make some hugel beds, or really hugel flats, given that I've buried the cuttings in trenches that already existed.
I had a few mounds of prunings from the trees in the distance, and having 'pruned the prunings' down as far as I could be bothered to build up some kindling for next year I was left with several messy piles of small bits of olive branch, which are very angular and springy in nature - so a relatively small amount takes up a lot of room.
I had burned some prunings a few weeks ago - there was just SO much and it's SUCH a fire hazard - trust me, olive burns HOT, and the small stuff, FAST, I know this from having burnt some - but that was just to get ahead with clearance.
I'm at the point now where I can relax a bit and take some time clearing and putting the organic matter to good use, so with the prunings from some of the trees I made a hugel bed (I've actually made TWO now, this is just one of them).
I was quite lucky as the previous owners of the land had made trenches for watering in the veggie-garden area which I was able to just extend and use to bury quite a lot of olive wood in...
All I had to do was use an enchada (a great tool) to simply scrape the thankfully quite loose earth into a mound above the trench, pile in some olive prunings and then cover them back up again.... They defo won't be burning now...
NB I've got a huge area available for planting veggies, so the plan is to use HALF of this to bury olive wood - I can't see myself EVER needing to use this half for veggies, so I'll probably end up putting a chicken pen in here or planting more fruit trees or fruit shrubs, in which case it will be relatively easy to avoid the buried wood (you want to plant DOWN around here, not into a mound given the long, hot, dry summers!)....
I've still got this much room for annual veggies....
It felt really good to actually put some of this organic matter back into the earth where it can gradually rot back down and become, well, more earth!
I'm going to plan out now WHERE I can usefully build up some hugel beds, I'm thinking just below the first terrace is an awesome place - I could almost create a mini terrace against it in places, could be a way to go!
I certainly want to burn as little as possible going forwards!
