Using olive tree leaves and twigs as mulch?

It's olive harvesting season here in the Mediterranean. The olive mills are on full blast, and are producing huge piles of olive leaves that they consider "waste". They basically told us to come load them up in our truck whenever we wanted.

I was wondering if it would be safe to use them as mulch in a forest garden. The leaves are slightly coated with olive oil, and I heard that the oil is antibacterial? Could it inhibit the growth of trees and other plants?

But would it be wise to let the pile sit and decompose for a while before applying it as mulch? Or would it have no effect on plants if used fresh?

What a windfall!

You can use the leaves as is if you choose, you can turn them into leaf mold just by piling them up and keeping them moist or you can compost them.

Using leaves as is only means you need to keep them moist until they matt enough to not be blown away by the wind. The slight amount of oil won't really be a problem.
If you are worried about the antimicrobial properties of olive oil, then these next two methods would relieve those concerns.
Turning them into leaf mold is pretty fast and easy and they will stay put much better than fresh leaves plus there will be bacteria and fungi growing in the material which will seep to the soil and populate the soil which will make it better and better.
Turning them into compost takes more time and needs additions of other materials but increases the bacteria and fungi to the point that an entire micro biome can be introduced where you use the end product.

All are good choices but are dependent upon what you want the leaves to do for your garden/ orchard spaces.

Redhawk

does anyone know what the carbon:nitrogen ratio is for shredded olive branch prunings? I want to compost with them. All the other people in my area burn them in great piles. We have just aquired an olive tree orchard and see this free biomass as a fantastic addition to our composting  and possibly also as mulch.

Branches with leaves will be cllose to 3:1 carbon to N. If you chip them you could also use them for mulching directly.

Redhawk

fantastic, thanks so much for your response. Yes, we will be chipping them first.

Hi, I am wondering the same thing, can we somehow use the olive tree branches that we pruned for enriching that same soil, not burning the branches?
Any advices? Thank you!!

Marija Mary wrote:Hi, I am wondering the same thing, can we somehow use the olive tree branches that we pruned for enriching that same soil, not burning the branches?

Yes, I see no reason why a person would not want to use them.  Using olive branches will add a lot of nutrients to the soil.

As mentioned here:

Bryant RedHawk wrote:Branches with leaves will be cllose to 3:1 carbon to N. If you chip them you could also use them for mulching directly.

Thanks for the great advice. Has anyone has lots of new olive trees  come up from their mulch. We have just mulched some large trees that still had some immature fruit on. We are worried a that we will have new saplings pop up everywhere. Or will the heat and destructive mulching process stop this? Thoughts?