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January 6, 2011

Olives

Filed under: Uncategorized — Darren & Malcolm @ 8:04 pm

What with rain and snow, plus all the other work we have had to do we have finally harvested our few olive trees.  We however are not the only ones in the area to have harvested later this time around.  The type of olive trees that we have and that are also prevalent in the region are the ‘Lecce’ type.  They are black olives as you can see and make a very fine extra virgin oil and do not look much like the versions you might buy to eat in any supermarket.  These are a very beautiful purple blue in reality and look fantastic when gathered together in a basket like this.

Our kind neighbour has helped us out by lending to us her nets to help harvest the trees. These nets are then laid under the tree.  As we only have 6 trees at present we were able to use the traditional method of getting the fruit from the trees by using two long sticks to shake the branches.  The fruit then, very courteously, drops into the nets below.  Those who have many more trees than us use a mechanical devise that looks like a vibrating toasting fork .  Thus with a few helping hands 60 trees can be done in a couple of days.  That is enough for about 60 – 90 litres of oil.

We then took the chests of olives to the ‘Frantoio’ – the olive press and left them there to be pressed.  They think that we should get 4 or 5 litres worth which will keep us going for a few months.  The Frantoio is a few miles away from here and is a small mill and one which is very old.  The machinery seems to date from about 40 years and there is the lovely smell of smoke, fires, engine oil and fresh olives filling the small room where 2 olive presses are working full time at this time of year.

3 Comments »

  1. that sounds like a lot of oil for 6 trees – how fantastic to be using your own oil !

    Comment by Kay and Yong — April 22, 2011 @ 11:47 am

  2. Darren’s looking fit and healthy !

    Comment by Kay and Yong — April 22, 2011 @ 11:48 am

  3. Brilliant! To pour your own olive oil into the pan……how do they segregate the olives… or do you get a set amount…and it could be your neighbours olives that provided the oil?

    Comment by Rosie — February 2, 2012 @ 3:19 am

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