PRODUCTION AND CARE OF YOUR PLANTS INCREASE THE PRODUCTION OF YOUR OLIVES If you follow these four tips that I will now give you, you will see that the production of your olives will increase by at least 20-30%. The first piece of advice I give you to increase production in your olive grove is to not work the soil under the foliage of the plant, do not go near whith the hoes that clean the soil, it will become hard and dry, instead of fine and fluffy. You just have to pass with the sickle and leave the grass there so that it can repair and fertilize. If we work the soil under the foliage we destroy all those small capillaries that the plant also has on the surface. When a nice dew will come on a very foggy August night, the humidity will fall and the soil will be able to take it up through those small capillaries that the plant also has on the surface, which will transmit it to the plant, this will make it suffer less thirst. If you suffer less thirst, the olives will also be larger, there will even be more oil. When the grass starts to grow 15-20 centimeters, cut it a little and leave it under the olive tree. As it dries it will rot and become an excellent fertilizer for the plant, creating, even in summer, a soft soil, which will stay fresh. The second piece of advice I give you is on the fertilization the plant. A plant that produces every year, clearly takes energy and nutrients from the soil, removes them and we will have to integrate them again. The best fertilization for the olive tree is a ratio of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, 3 1 3, which means that, compared to phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium must be triple. This is what the olive tree wants. Always fertilize with organic material, only use chemical material to integrate the
missing substances. If, however, you use mineral granular fertilizers, for example nitrogenous ones, and you exaggerate with the dose it becomes very dangerous, you could burn the grass and the plant. Mineral fertilizers are fast-release so the plant, since it continually needs to be nourished, will take everything at once and then run out; it therefore requires an organic fertilizer such as an excellent mature manure, because it will slowly release the nutritional elements over time, because it will release the nutritional elements slowly over time and the plant will absorb them when it needs them and will never be left without these important energies for its growth, that of flowers, olives and twigs. It's very simple, do two fertilizations a year, the first after harvesting the olives and you'll be at the end of November/December, you will do the second one after pruning in April, you will cut the grass and leave it there under the olive tree, before fertilizing again. The following year's production will certainly be a guaranteed harvest. The third piece of advice I give you is: do not work the soil under the foliage of the plant. Don't go with hoes to clear the soil, because it will then become dry, we talked about it before. Do not let the grass grow more than 15/20 cm. otherwise, she will be the one that will take away energy, nutrients and water to the plant. Under the soil it will create a layer that will always be fresh, soft and fluffy in summer. The fourth suggestion I give you is to do production pruning every year. Production pruning is done at the end of February, beginning of March. It's about trying to eliminate all the branches that have now grown and been produced, which have also broken during harvesting and the diseased ones. Also eliminate the internal suckers, so that from March/April onwards the plant will have vegetation, which will remain on the plant and then produce flowers and olives. It is clear that if we have freed the plant from all those branches, in useless quotation marks, it will have a lighter foliage, more slender and more air will arrive, more light on the leaves and these will activate the chlorophyll synthesis, they will transform the raw
sap taken from the roots and it will become processed sap, to be distributed again to the branches and future olives.
ENDLESS BASIL In summer, we very often use basil, a fragrant plant that we use for our dishes. But where do we get this basil? We usually buy it in packets at the supermarket, or we take in plastic vase which then inevitably cause it to wither, if not treated in the correct way. For this reason we must say that basil, once bought in a plastic vase, must be divided, plant by plant, and plant them in a large earthenware pot, or in the ground, spacing them about five centimeters apart, so you will be able to make it grow large, and take advantage of its leaves. But can basil be multiplied at no cost? The answer is yes. There are three methods to do this, let's start with the first
method: as a cutting. We need to detach a sprig from a large basil plant to then reproduce it, but how do we do this operation? We take some scissors and a branch of the basil plant, now we see that on the branch at the top, there are some leaves, but immediately below, there is a node with other smaller leaves, we will have to cut on the bias, about three centimeters below that knot. Once this cutting has been created, we will have to eliminate the leaves and leaflets on the node, and leave those at the top. Now we have the perfect cutting, and we are going to place it in a glass with four centimeters of water, which we will then place in a place with lots of light, but not with direct sunlight. After a few days you will notice that small white rootlets will have been created at the base of the cut, then, we put everything back in the glass, and after a week the root system will have fully formed. We take a ten centimeter earthenware pot, fill it with peat, and make a hole in the middle of about eight centimeters, where we will insert the roots, delicately, then closing the earth around, and watering abundantly with a spray bottle. From there other leaves will grow and all the basil you will need. Second method: from a leaf. This method is the least invasive for the plant. We choose a leaf from a basil plant that is adult and does not have any type of spot or dot, but is beautiful green and healthy. Detach it from the root of the branch, with your hands, or with a pair of scissors, better with your hands if you can, and if a thread of the branch remains attached when it comes off, even better, it will be used to make the roots grow later. Take a glass glass, put two centimeters of water, and immerse the leaflet from the stem side, which must be completely covered by the water. In a glass, at most, you can put four of these leaves. Place the glass in a place with lots of light, but not in direct sunlight. After two weeks we remove the leaflet from the water and check if the roots have developed, if so, you will see white roots of at least five centimeters coming out of the stem of the leaf. We take a ten centimeter pot, fill it with peat, make a four centimeter hole, and insert the roots in such a way that they are placed under the earth, only the roots, not the leaf. Then we will place the jar, which will be wetted abundantly, away from the sun's rays, but in a bright place. After about three weeks, you will see some small leaves growing next to our leaf, that will mean that the basil will have started to grow, and before long the plant will grow, and you will have basil all summer long. In the case of multiple
leaves detached from the branch, you will need to have a pot for each one, not all in the same pot. Third method: from seeds. Surely this is the method that will give you more plants at the same time, but it will take more days. Let's take the usual ten centimeter earthenware pot, filled with good peat, and this will serve as sowing soil, then you will see why. We spread the basil seeds in the soil so as to occupy the entire circumference of the pot, then with the tines of a fork, gently move the soil a little, so that the seeds, falling under the ground, let's vaporize abundantly. Let's take the earthenware vase and close it inside a cellophane bag, for example: the freezer bag, which we will close hermetically, so a humid environment will form inside, with a constant temperature, which will help the growth of the seedlings. After ten days you will see the first seedlings emerge, two millimeters high, and after two days, they will have grown from all the seeds planted. After two weeks they will have enlarged and will have filled the entire vase. Now we have to transplant each of the seedlings into another pot, let's see how: you need to make a square cut in the ground, around the seedlings. Once the clod of earth with the seedlings has been extracted, we must divide them one by one, with their own clod of earth, it is very important to do this, and not leave the roots of the seedling without soil, otherwise it will die. Once we have obtained the plant with its lump, we place it in a ten centimeter earthenware pot filled with peat, digging a central hole, where we will insert it, we close the earth around it, and leave the twig outside with the leaf on top, this whole operation must be done with absolute delicacy and for each plant. In the end you will have endless basil, and you can use it for many recipes, even to make pesto, which you will put in glass jars in the freezer, as well as a reserve for the whole winter. These are three simple methods for reproduce the basil.
HOW TO GROW MUSHROOMS AT HOME You will wonder how it is possible to grow mushrooms at home, now we will explain how to do it, and after seeing the result, you will be surprised and happy. Take a mushroom that you like, and that you would like to grow, it must be ripe. What does it mean? That the top of the mushroom must be opened completely, so that the spores are ready to generate other mushrooms. You will also need a two-liter empty plastic bottle and some thatch. Let's now take the chosen mushroom and cut it into pieces. Once cut, we will insert it into a blender, add two or three inches of water, in order to allow the mushroom to be chopped. Blend until a very liquid and homogeneous paste is obtained. At this point we take some straw, or hay, and cut it into small pieces of three to ten centimeters maximum, place it in a tall pan, fill it with water, up to above the straw, and light the fire. Once
the water starts to boil, cook for about half an hour, in this way the straw will sterilize, creating the ideal environment for the mushrooms to grow. Once half an hour has passed, we turn off the heat and wait for it to cool, then we drain it and leave it there, to lose all the excess liquids. Once the necessary time has passed, we transfer the thatch to another container; the pot where we boiled it will also be fine. Now we pour the mixture we have blended into the thatch and mix it well together with the thatch. The better you mix it, the easier it will be to have the harvest. Now we take the empty bottle, cut it from the mouth downwards, ten centimeters. In the end we obtain two pieces: the bottle, which we fill with thatch, pressing it well, up to ten centimeters from the edge, and the part above. Make sure there are no spaces in the thatch, otherwise the mycelium will not be able to develop. Now we close the bottle, using the piece above, turning it upwards. Insert cotton into the neck of the bottle to prevent air from entering. To keep the lid down, we can place two pieces of adhesive tape crossed. At this point, we take the bottle and its contents to a place in the house where there is light, but not direct sun. The ideal temperature for growing mushrooms is between twenty-two and twenty-eight degrees. After a few days, looking at the bottle, we can notice that the thatch inside has become a little darker and if we observe carefully, some clear spots will also begin to form, there is the mycelium forming there, from where the mushrooms will then arise. We let another ten days pass, and we see that the white patch has enlarged a lot, it is the mycelium that is getting bigger. When all the mycelium has covered the thatch in the bottle, you can proceed with the next step. The mushrooms will grow on the top of the bottle, but they can also grow on the sides; so, we create side holes so that the mushroom can come out. With a cutter we are going to make windows of maximum ten by ten centimeters, placed in the two parts of the bottle, at the same level. We also remove the lid, and on top of the thatch, we place about two centimeters of universal soil, we compress it slightly, and with a spray bottle we wet abundantly, to make the soil moist, but not soaked. What is obtained a bottle completely full of white mycelium. After a few days, we see a small mushroom peeking out under the ground, and after about ten days the mushroom will have been born. The mushroom that you decided to put in the initial compost will then be the one that grew above the ground, and once it is an adult, you can harvest it. This is
the first mushroom grown by you. Then in the lateral parts, other mushrooms will grow, just let them grow well, and collect them by giving a tear at the base of the mushroom. If you want to increase production, you can take some little plastic barrels and redo everything as explained above, with the difference that, for the lid, you do not use the upper part of the barrel, but the transparent film, where you then make about ten holes with the tip of a knife. With this method, you can create a mushroom farm at home.
HOW TO REVIVE A DRIED ORCHID When we have an orchid that you see as dead, don't throw it away! You can revive it with this method, let's describe it. Then extract the root part from the jar, see if there are still any green ones, and if there are, clean them well from the earth. Prendi una cesoia, delle forbici da giardinaggio, e inizia a tagliare tutte le radici che sono secche, poi taglia le due sommità del tronco centrale. Light a candle, and drop the melted wax onto the two