Liquid gold – part 3
I can’t believe this is our third olive harvest and they keep coming earlier. Usually it is in November but this year it was mid October. Global warming? Whatever it was, this summer has been very dry and very strange. August was cool and cloudy while September and so far in October it has been scorching. It took its toll on the olives as they ripened very early but also many were dry and shrivelled. We also had a lot fewer and could only muster 6 bins and that was after scouring all our trees and even taking some from the abandoned field next door.
So I was a bit embarrassed to take our paltry crop to the lagar (factory) for pressing. However, I was very pleasantly surprised that our 140kgs produced 22 litres – more than last year which came from nearly 8 bins (240kgs). And in fact it was about the same weight as our first harvest which only produced 15 litres. All rather strange.
When I got the oil back to the house we were keen to compare it with last year’s which we are still using. The major difference is that this year’s crop is green and last year’s a lovely golden colour. Apparently this is normal as oil fresh from the press has the most intense olive flavours (and other taste characteristics such as pepperiness and bitterness) and a correspondingly deeper green colour. As the oil ages it will slowly turn more golden as last year’s has done, and like wine it gets better with age (up to a point) – Luis our neighbour is still using oil from a bumper crop he had four years ago. We also need to keep the bottles open for a week or so to let the oil “breathe” before storage.
In other news the hens have stopped their strike. The unseasonably hot weather in October combined with the shortening of the days seems to have blocked up the hens and one of them was even a bit poorly for a day – unheard of over the last year but not surprising given her state of being bunged up! After a week of hardly any eggs and very hot weather, the temperature has come down and yesterday we were back to three eggs so hopefully it was a temporary blip.
Meanwhile we are waiting for our first autumn rain – it is due to arrive on Saturday. As the ground is bone dry and like concrete it will be interesting to say the least. It should also start filling the well. We are right down to the last few drops and a few scary looking objects at the bottom are appearing through the shallow water…
5 thoughts on “Liquid gold – part 3”
Jackie & Richard,
I love your Blog & have become an avid reader – I must try and take the next step and become an offical follower!
Do you mind me asking how many trees you have that generates that much oil?
Thanks
Imogen x
Hi Imogen
Glad you like the blog! It’s a bit strange about the trees. All of the farmers round here keep their trees well pruned and so they are not tall but thick with leaves and olives and so easier to harvest. As no one had lived here for about six years prior to us, a lot of the trees in our garden hadn’t been pruned or olives harvested, this meant they were quite tall but weren’t producing. If you leave them alone they don’t produce olives apparently. However, three surprisingly had quite a few olives in our first year so we got most of our oil from them. This year our 3 big producers didn’t have many olives but the others had started producing as we had pruned them. Having said that, we kept most of our trees only lightly pruned as they look better but don’t produce many olives. Anyway, in answer to your question we have about 20 trees in all but are only harvesting about half of them at the moment.
Wow that is an amzing figure – so effectively 10 trees “should” give you enough olives for olive oil for your own consumption. That is good to know – we are looking at several properties with between 10 and 50 trees – and we don’t want to end up with too much oil. We want enough for our own consumption with Olive Oil & also to turn our hand at eating Olives as well.
As you say many of the trees on land that we are looking at have probably been un-pruned & neglected for a while – can you start pruning & get them to recover?
Anyway – love the blog & as mentioned I have found it very useful & entertaining x
thanks for the reply
Imogen
Well it really depends on how productive those 10 trees are but I reckon that is easily enough. But remember you can use the olives to eat as they are (after soaking in brine) and the olive oil can be used for many things such as various preserves, making lavender oil, and even as soap which we hope to be producing soon.
We cut an old olive tree down completely to the ground when we first arrived and two years later there is a fantastic 6 foot tall olive bush which looks great. It will be producing olives next year. So they can regenerate very easily even after the harshest pruning.
Good luck!
quite resilient these fruiting trees aren’t they!
I have much to learn yet – but look forward to every bit as an adventure!
amazing how much you do – and have found your blog extremely useful x thanks again x