Our olive harvest this year was about three times as big as last years!
Olives freshly picked
Aren't they beautiful? If only they tasted as good as they look fresh from the tree!
Pickling in the jars
Once again we used the Milkwood recipe. We have half a jar left of the 2010 harvest and then we will have to wait at least six months for this lot to be ready.
The tree had gotten so big that it was quite hard to get into it to reach all the olives this year so I gave it a good prune after the harvest. I haven’t pruned it well for a few years now. The last time I pruned it back hard a few years back we only got a tiny harvest the next year, so I expect the 2012 harvest won’t be very large. Hopefully soon the second tree will start producing well (it only managed three olives this year which was its first fruiting) and then we can prune in opposite years so that we have a good sized harvest each year.
suburbanite farm 