Olive Picking May 2013

Neighbour Henry Sinclair took most of these photos.

Of course we had to begin with coffee and hot cinnamon scones which Jane bought over.

Jane's fantastic pinwheel scones for breakfast

The weekend of 4th May - time to pick our olives. Earlier than usual because of pending frosts - this meant the olives were greener than ideal. One third black, one third red, and one third green is preferred, however after losing all of our olives last year to frost, I didn't want to risk it. The weather was gorgeous for picking olives so Richard J, Richard M, Jane, David, Christina and I set to work.

We begin: the bins are clean and ready, the nets are laid out, and up the ladders we go. Even though it is late autumn, picking olives pretty hot work. We were lucky with the weather and we needed water frequently.

Richard was spotted being contemplative on various occasions.  Probably thinking strategy!

This is the first year with our own nets, having borrowed Paul's for the past few years. We bought these from a scaffolding company and they were fantastic.  We had cut them long enough to spread them out under 3 trees. This meant we didn't have to keep moving them.  I found it really satisfying as we gather the olives and put them into the bins. Each bin holds around 25 kg of olives so we know approximately how many kilos we have. Our olives are manzanilla, which is a table olive. This means we usually get a low percentage of oil - around 8% oil per kilo so 450 kilos of olives will produce 45 litres of oil. Other cultivars have 17 - 24% oil so our olives are not ideal for oil, however I prefer to have the oil than pickling the olives.

Christina came down from Auckland to help this year and it was great to be doing this together.

On day 3 we had picked all of our olives, and Paul from next door said we could pick some of his leccino olives. I thought these would improve the flavour of our oil so we headed next door on Sunday and we picked about 80Kg of olives.

Left: Christina taking the nets to the next trees we are to pick.

Lunch provides a welcome break from lugging nets, ladders and bins of olives. Sourdough bread, beetroot, walnut, orange and goats cheese salad, ham, avocado, and tomato and basil with of course heaps of olive oil from last year.

Richard and Christina folding the nets at the end of the day.

Great conversations are had in the trees: the impact of good breakfasts on children's abilities and motivation to learn, undesirable additives in NZ milk from imported feed for cows, the increased pollution in NZ rivers with intensive dairy farming, recent travels, the effects of super cities in increasing regional unemployment, recent apps we have discovered and books we have read.

Far right: Christina and Jane up the ladders







Right: me, spotted!


Bill down at the Olive Press had opened up for our olives. I love the moments when we pour all the bins into one of the wooden bins from the press, they are weighed and we find out how much we have actually picked, and then into the process they go. 45 minutes later our oil is swirling out, a rich dark lime green and our first taste of the season.                                                  

Bill and Richard discussing olive business down at the Olive Press.