Olevo

Another hot day in early June. We're in the vegetable garden extending the irrigation system, building bamboo structures for the corn and tomatoes, and transplanting seedlings from the nursery. The olive groves are thriving, but the seedlings are already struggling in the early summer heat.

We've built a detailed grow calendar for all our vegetables, plants, and flowers over the years, carefully researched and annotated, but the challenges of the changing climate mean that we're going to have to rethink our traditional planting dates. We're already planting earlier. And it's too late.

Wish us luck! @ olevoitalia.com

Lots of pretty cornflower in a wicker basket in the garden at the farm. We'd picked as much camomile as we could in a mad rush before the heat spoilt it, and it took days, and now we've got heaps of it drying or already distilled into lovely hydrolate.

Picking the cornflower was simple and fairly quick, but we'll do another run in the coming days as more flowers bloom in the milder weather. It gives us time to work on a marketing plan for Germany, prepare to launch a new series of soaps on our website, and plant more vegetables in the garden at home. Busy! 🤪

Early June @ olevoitalia.com

An extremely busy week, but just enough time for an an afternoon cutting soap for an order we have to send of to Germany. All our olive oil soaps are custom made for each client, so it takes up to a month for them to dry naturally before we can cut and wrap them and send them off.

We've also begun harvesting the camomile flowers at the farm, and completed our first tests with our new distillation machine there to make essential oils, oliolites, and hydrolytes. This is all part of a new project we're working on, so there's that, as well as everything else. Spring is a very busy time.

Working hard @ olevoitalia.com