Olive Picking: bringing you the
Best of the Blogs
At this time of year the web is full of reports of olive harvesting the
traditional way: the hard work, the aching limbs, the elation and of course the sense of achievement! This is our
round up of some of the best (all text and photos copyright of the blogs featured). Selecting
'read more' will take you directly to the original blog entry.
Blog titles shown as separate
words for ease of reading (the spaces are not there in the actual urls).
The Best of
the Blogs:
Katja Meier originally from Switzerland
and now married to an Italian has produced the Olive Picking For Dummies
Photo Guide on her informative website about Southern Tuscany. As they say every picture is worth a thousand words and this is certainly true with
her funny illustrated depiction of how to undertake the olive harvest
Olive Picking For
Dummies
Part One: The Essentials - what
you need. An olive grove, sounds simple but this may turn out to be your first stumbling
stone. In fact not many of us happen to have an olive tree, let alone a whole grove in our backyard.
True I do, but it didn't come for free ...
read more
Chef and author David
Lebovitz, now living the sweet life in Paris, writes about helping friends in Provence with
their olive harvest.
Olive Picking in
Provence
... an annual olive pick for some close friends (the hardiest ones, no doubt) who are willing to
stand in out in the blistery-cold rain, bundled up against the brisk wind, and climb rickety ladders to pluck
tiny olives off their branches.
... read
more
Charlie Skelton writes in the Guardian Word
of Mouth Blog about the trials and tribulations of his olive harvest in Portugal.
The Olive Oil
Barons
The first pressing, at Pedrógão Pequeno, we sorted
completely by hand. We loaded the car at 5.30am in pitch darkness having booked the first slot of the
day. ... read
more
From working in IT to owning an olive farm in Andalucia, Spain - read
about the trials and tribulations of growing olives here up in the mountains
(from Lujos).
Olive
edification
All year, we watch and wait. We watch the olives
as they grow from tiny flowers to fully formed olives. We wait while they turn from green, to purple, and
finally to black. ... read
more
Nicola Basso brings us a wonderful video diary of the olive harvest in southern Italy - you can watch
it here.
In her evocative blog Painting
Skiathos, Yvonne (an award winning English artist who spends much of
her year painting in Greece and who arranges painting holidays there) describes how she has been busy with the
harvest. Her beautiful photographs document the whole process - as she writes: from tree to table.
Olives: From Tree to
Table
Three days (of intensive olive picking) later, we
had ten heavy sacks (weighing approx 450 kilos!) full to the brim with both plump, ripe black olives and
smaller, semi-ripe green ones. ... read more
Sarah is a Scottish farmer's daughter living her dream in Umbria. She write
on Sarah-Eliza-Beth about helping with the harvest.
Olive
Harvest
This weekend I spent helping my mother-in-law's aunt, Zia V, to harvest her olives. Zia
V is an incredible lady and an inspiration. At 85 years old she manages her farm and does the same work
as a woman half her age. ... read
more
La
Mennula produce Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Sicily using Nocellara,
Biancolilla and Cerasuola olives. There are some great photos on their facebook page (use link above) and also a
video clip of the washing and grinding process.
David in Provence
Tayl's tells us about the harvest from his garden in Provence
where he has set up his own luxury holiday rental business.
Olive
Picking
This is one bin that Karen and I picked from just
one tree yesterday weighing almost 20 Kilos. ... read
more
A great description from Kat, in her brilliantly
named Getting Awesome blog, of how she became an Olive Picker (with WWOOF).
Back in Action/The Olive Harvest Part
1
Harvesting olives was perfect work for me. It’s
outside, but still shady, as you have the protection of the tree. It’s active, but not strenuous. It’s
repetitive, but not mindless. ... read more
Amanda (another American) this time an artist living in France brings us
photos of the harvest in her blog Domaine la Combe du
Jardienier. They are picking olives for the table and to complement
their wine.
It's Olive Picking
Season
There is always something to harvest around here.
My favorite is olives. ... read
more
Margaret, an American, (blogging
as Margaret Feinberg) is currently olive picking in Croatia and has put us a number of posts about her time
there.
Supple Hands and Olive
Bliss
We’ve been picking olives for two days, well, a
day and a half. Rained out this morning, we traveled back to the fields at noon to pluck the green and purple
delicacies. ... read more
Fragolina in her food blog Fragole e Farfalle brings us some great pictures
of her olive harvest and a recipe for Lebanese doughnuts to eat with the first of the new season's oil. She uses a
spice that we may find hard to buy in the west: mahlab which is made from the kernel inside crushed cherry stones
and adds a sour cherry/almondy note (UK and US readers may have to improvise!)
Olive
Harvest
It is going to be hard for me to explain about the
smell, ... it is a great, amazing, strong smell, one of a kind, one of the best fragrances. It has the smell of
the ground, the nature, the trees. ... read more
From the Cook Eat Live
Vegetarian blog comes this account of a day spent helping friends
in Spain with their olive harvest (great atmospheric photos and a recipe for Black Olive Tapenade too):
The Day We Helped With The Olive
Harvesting
Our friends Andrew & Margarita have an olive
grove. Some of the trees are really old and some of them they have planted themselves 10 years ago "to fill in
the gaps". About this time every year they ask for volunteers to help with the olive harvesting
... read
more
Tanya the author of Tanya In Transition, is a food loving
Jamaican-Canadian married to a French husband! Here she describes her experience of Olive Picking in the south of
France:
Harvest Season in the South of
France
D and I spent the greater part of Sunday
picking olives with les parents. It was a new experience for both of us leaving us with aching backs and
shoulders and sheer pride at the results. We turned over 104.5 kg of olives to the Moulin St Augustin this
morning. ...
read more
Finca Arboleda specialises in child free holidays in South Eastern Spain. This year they have posted an
account and great photos of their olive harvest on Facebook.
Finca Arboleda Olive Picking
starts today
Yesterday went well, 1097 kgs of Olives and 282
litres of oil, the best % ever, 25.7. ... read more
Balloon Ride Over Olive Trees at Finca
Arboleda a New Harvesting Method
Maybe!
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