Olive crops
Eating Olives
At Lamda Olive Grove 4 kalamata Olive trees provide sufficent large, black olives for domestic use. They are picked by hand in October.
Olive Oil
64 trees at Lamda, 10 at Trigono, and 5 at the Lemon Grove provide small olives from
which oil is produced. Quality varies with location, and year - reflecting the
micro-climate of each site as well as overall conditions for the year and how the
trees were pruned the previous year. Lamda, which has rich but well drained soil,
produces the highest quality.
The trees have been pruned to provide a main crop on alternate years, making it easier to manage from a distance, though bad weather may still ruin a good crop.
Preparing and cutting
Nets are spread beneath the trees - a job for two people! The nets are handled carefully as holes will let olives escape. They are overlapped in a systematic way so that olives can be poured from one onto another. Branches are then cut from the tree. This is a skilled job, not just because a chain saw is often used, but because only branches of the correct size should be cut, leaving smaller ones to grow for another year or two. Olive pruning is an art, - the tree needs to remain balanced and cutting at harvest time can save pruning later.
Beating the Olives
The cut branches are passed over an olive beating machine with a sack attached into which the olives can fall. Of course the olives fly in all directions and land on the nets. many also fall as the bracnches are cut. Any that stubbornly remain on the branches are beaten off with a stick. A loger stick, possibly bamboo, is used to beat olives from younger branchse that will be left on the tree but have produced a few olives this season. In some countries, or if there are few trees, a machine will not be used at all. We used a hand saw and no machinery at the Triangle one yearand it was a very calm, satisfying process.
Gathering the olives
When the cutting and machinery have been moved to a new tree, one or two workers gather the olives that have fallen into the nets. The job is done carefully as olives are heavy, nets relatively expensive and mending them not a nice job! Small cans are used to scoop up the olives and fill the sacks, each of which, when full, could weigh 40 kilos. Carrying sacks far is not good, nor usually even possible, so they are left dotted around the site for the tractor, often specially hired by the community for the season, so available on request, to collect. The sacks are often named, and when taken to the olive factory, will be stacked neatly, each batch separately, to wait up to 3 days, but hopefully less, their turn to be processed.
