Until this year we have had a local gardener, Apostolis, taking care of our olive trees, but now he has retired and a young fellow will do the pruning. Apostolis always insisted on surface-ploughing the ground between the olive trees, to keep the weeds down, it was better for the olive trees, he said. We finally managed to make him leave some ground around the house unploughed, so that we have some place to be outside the flag-stoned terrace, which was a great improvement.
I wonder if this ploughing is still the recommended practice these days? Some people insist on digging the ground around the trunk, but is this preferable to leaving the ground untouched? We used to do so with apple trees before, but I don’t think it is commonly done any longer; generally it is said that you should disturb the ground as little as possible. I would much prefer to have the ground covered with wild flowers, if it is OK for the olive trees. What do you recommend?