Growing up, my siblings and I would fight over the relish tray. Especially the black olives. No one was satisfied unless they could get their hands on ten black olives – one for each finger.

I recently planted a Mission Olive tree in my front yard. It will be another 3-to-5 years before I get to harvest olives, but that doesn’t mean I am any less excited. My husband got a good laugh when I picked up my Charlie-Brown olive tree that I had preordered back in November. But he made up for it when he dug the hole to plant it in the front yard. 🙂

I had never planted a tree before so I did a lot of research beforehand. I read that you should dig a hole twice as wide as it is deep, and that you need to plant a tree so that the root ball is just buried. I tried my best to do this but now, two week later, it seems like the tree has already sunk down a little so I’m a little nervous about whether I planted it too deep. We shall see.

I’ve also read a lot about how it takes a long time for a new tree to establish. (Something like 1-3 years.) And thus it is very important to frequently water your new tree while it is establishing itself and its root system. Right now I’m watering by hand, which I know isn’t the right thing to do. So I’ll probably have to rethink that soon. But I’m not too concerned since my tree already has many new leaves, just two weeks after being planted! Let’s just hope that it stays happy as the hot, drought-stricken summer approaches.