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This was a wonderful read. Reminded me of the gorgeous olive groves that line the valley in Delphi Greece. I walked down to the sanctuary of Athena and rested next to an olive tree admiring the stone work created by people who lived thousands of years ago. Sitting there I couldn’t help but contemplate the passage of time and my own tiny place in it as a mortal like all those who came before. It was a humbling and inspiring experience and the beautiful olive tree was a part of it.

Thank you. I envy you that experience.

When we were in Tuscany about five years ago, I saw many areas where the rows of olives were interspersed with rows of grapes. My understanding is that olives are very forgiving of bad soil, lack of water, and inattention — which is why you can find truly ancient trees. Our big trees were planted along with citrus, pomegranates, and blueberries, as well as vitex and flowering plums, and they all seem to be happy. As for the brined olives, they are really easy to cure the old-fashioned way — just salt water, changed each week for about 12 weeks, then storing in a weaker brine of salt water with vinegar. I add garlic, chiles and herbs, and sometimes citrus slices to the final product. Many of the commercially produced olives are processed using lye, which apparently cures the olives in about 12 hours.

A lovely article.

But regarding your comment (“People have been doing this for thousands of years. How hard can it be?”), I think older product/technologies have been tweaked so extensively that it’s hard to compete unless EVERYTHING is just right. Whereas with a newer product/technology there’s usually a bit of slack so you can be sub-optimum and still succeed.

Thanks, Roger. Plus we can avoid some of the old trial-and-error mistakes by trouble-shooting our problems on the Internet.

I love reads like this, combining story with experience — esp. TJ and olives, who knew! I’ve been recently enamoured with olives, esp. after listening to a podcast in which the host tours an olive mill (http://jacksfarmradio.com/oregon-olive-mill-with-paul-durant). I only wish I could plant an olive tree in New Hampshire. Good luck with your endeavor to bring food into the world!

Keep us updated on how you think the hummingbirds and other efforts go with treating the fruit flies. I’m looking to start planting fruit trees and Kiowa blackberries at our place where the wild ones are growing abundantly.

My olive update for this season: I placed three hummingbird feeders among my five big trees, and another three in the pasture with the remaining younger trees. I am replacing the nectar regularly, and I am seeing hummingbirds every time I go outside (we also have lots of flowers that they feed on). I wish I could tell whether they are also going after the fruit flies! I also doubled the McPhail traps with torula yeast, and they are capturing fruit flies as well, and I am spraying with the GF-120. We had so much rain over the winter — about 10% more than our “normal” rainfall — that the trees are covered with newly forming olives. It will be at least three months before I can tell whether these efforts are working, and five months until the harvest. Fingers crossed!

@leannebaker We have a Syrian man who mysteriously appears every year and picks our two trees and gives us a jar or two of processed olives in return. He came a month ago and we have a nice big jar of Kalamata olives. No fruit fly here but the possums will take the ripe olives if they are really hungry.

A win/win! A man with my own frugal tendencies.

My final update for the 2016 olive growing season — a total success! My nephew and friends helped us pick about 320 pounds of olives, and our share of the community pressing was about 4-1/2 gallons. Interestingly, while the trees themselves were covered with olives, the yields for oil were way down this year. (Still, 4-1/2 gallons has put a smug smile on my face.) As for the olive fruit fly, I can declare victory for last year. One tree had a fair amount of damage, but the rest were vastly improved. The hummingbird feeders really helped, I believe, so much so that I stopped spraying in midsummer and just used the feeders and the torula yeast traps. By the time of the harvest, however, I noticed enough fruit fly damage that next year I will be more diligent about the spray. And since my small trees are getting bigger and actually produced some olives last year, I will double or triple the hummingbird feeders in the pasture area where they are located.

@leannebaker Hmmmmm…olives. Do you have a tree shaker yet? 🙂