Friday 24 November 2017

Olives away

Olive picking has begun in earnest.   The family who own the land next to us were out in force all day yesterday.  




Their haul, 8 sacks of olives ready to go off to the oil press.  Each sack contains from 50-70 kilos of olives.

They left the sacks overnight under the trees and a small truck collected them the next morning.  Here on Poros, an island, this is still possible.   Across on the mainland Peloponese no-one would dare leave bags of olives standing unattended under a tree all night.  They would disappear like magic into someone else's little truck.   Times have changed.




The two sisters, with 'menfolk', arrived soon after seven and set to work straight away setting out a large net under the first tree.  One of the men climbed up a long ladder, cutting and throwing down higher branches which were laden with fruit.  The two girls combed the branches letting the olives fall onto the nets.




They didn't stop for a 'charming rustic picnic' at lunch time, in fact hardly stopped at all during the day.  Husbands and friends arrived to help and they finished the (about) 15 trees by late afternoon.

The olives under each tree were gathered up into one big heap and the women spent a long time on their knees removing sticks and leaves.  




Next day they moved on to another olive grove they own.  The sacks are taken to the press every few days. 

We have a dozen oil presses in the area, each one  working from dawn till 'whenever'.  Friends of ours waited 7 hours to get their olives turned into oil.  The queue of farm pick-ups is endless at this season.    

  These olives are on flat ground and are fairly easy to pick.  Trees on rough, rocky land or on the side of mountains are hard work but the olives get harvested whatever the terrain or the weather.





9 comments:

  1. Is all olive picking done by hand? Are there any large "orchards" owned by big companies? I supposed what we have here that could be comparable would be strawberry fields - all picked by hand, some migrant workers. -Jenn

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    1. All olive picking around here is done by hand. Elsewhere they sometimes use electric 'combs' which makes the olives drop a little faster. Basically you need a lot of hard worrking hands.

      Orchards around here are all family owned. I am sure greece has plantations run by companies but I dont know of any.

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  2. When we driving through Southern Spain on holiday the guide told us that the olives were harvested by machine which shakes the tree. I think there must still be quite a lot of labour involved though. Interesting to see your island's olive enterprises.

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    1. Those tree shakers have made an appearance here. I guess they are used by big producers. Here it is all small family plots. My sister in law has 2000 trees but many of them are on hill sides or in very difficult terrain. Even picking by hand is strenuous there.

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  3. Lots of hard work. But then oil for everyone. That’s got to be a good thing
    I love the red tool they use.

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    1. Exactly, oil for everyone. Thats why everyone picks, to get their years supply of fresh oil. Specially around here they hate having to buy for the supermarket.

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  4. It sounds a little like Chestnut gathering here, but our chestnuts fall naturally. I presume everyone's Olives become amalgamated, and the quantity of oil is distributed simply by weight. Is that so?

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    1. No way do they get amalgamated!!! You take your olives to the press and you watch as YOUR olives are pressed, and only yours and you watch carefully till the oil comes out the other end and into YOUR containers.
      Whether it is 100 kilos of olives or a ton of olives, everyone's gets pressed separately.

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    2. That's wonderful, and how it should be. I'd imagined that times were more cynical.

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