Thursday 28 November 2019

Family Olives


 family that stays together picks olives together.
It's the law of the land, family land, family olives.  Or in this case olive, single.  One olive tree in the back yard.

Our daughter's family went the whole hog and picked their olive-s this year.  You have to go the whole hog whether it's one tree or a hundred.  Out came the nets, the rakes and all the paraphernalia




Tall grandson came home for the weekend to gather the family olives  ..
I would say if that was true.  But he did help while he was here


Laying the net



A bumper crop 





Not 'bumper' enough to send to the oil press
These ones are for eating





They are picked over one by one, leaves removed, mishapen ones put aside.  
Unforunately most of them are infected with 'dako', a nasty worm which burrows into the olive.  Serious growers will spray to prevent infestation.  These olives are 100%  organic.  No sprays, no chemicals


Enough for a few bottles of home pickled olives.  First they must be soaked in water for a few days to remove the bitterness



The rest are piled under the olive tree as compost


Our neighbourhood is buzzing with olive pickers this week.  Vaso and her family have started picking and taken the first sacks to the press.  They'll be picking till well after Christmas.
Further down our road a team of Albanians are picking for a family who live in Athens and no longer come for the harvest.  The pickers receive half the oil as their 'reward' and sell it privately or sell it to the oil press.  


I went out one morning to find a friend of ours picking the olives in the field next door.  These olives are virtually abandoned but every second year they produce a heavy crop.  One of the neighbouring families picks the olives for absent owners.

The olive tree, they say,  will thrive if you leave it alone but once you start watering and giving it nutriment then you must keep on doing so.  


There are olives everywhere, even along the footpaths on Poros

12 comments:

  1. Your life is so different there in Greece. I love hearing about your everyday/seasonal happenings, like the olives.
    It seems a shame that absent families no longer enjoy picking their own olives - or is enjoy the wrong word? I imagine it can be a lot of hard work!

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    1. Very hard work and often in rain, mud and snow. The new generation still wants the oil but now their lives are different and so many work in the city

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  2. I have two olive trees
    One is out the front competing with other trees I moved it last and this year is doing much better. Hopefully it will produce some olives soon
    The other I grew in a pot and out into the ground at the start of winter
    It is full of flowers
    I might even get an olive or two
    We will see

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    1. I want an olive tree in our back yard. I'm going to buy one. We do have olive trees but not around the house.
      In sure yours will produce, hopefully soon. Even a few olives of your own are exciting!

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  3. I imagine if they have bugs in them they could still go for making oil. No fruit on my miserable tree this year. I'm now looking forward to my 2020 crop!

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    1. They do try to get rid of the buggy ones. It hurts the quality of the oil.
      Roll on 2020

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  4. Popeye liked his Olive Oil. Sorry. Wish we had olive trees. It looks a super harvest.

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  5. Another delightful custom!!!!!

    🔥💛🔥

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  6. I just adore olives, I think I'd do pretty well living in Greece, green or black I don't care. My sister has olive trees on her property though and every years she, her husband and the neighbours all join together and pick them to be sent off to make oil out of

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    Replies
    1. You would love it here. There are olives green and olives black, wrinkled or smooth, big or small, pickled or salted .... and so!!!

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