In green and black, to make oil and to eat
There is a lot to tell about olives. When we started living here, we thought we knew a lot about this precious food. But it seems there is a lot more to learn about olive trees and olives. Our plan is to extend our olive orchard with olive trees on a big wasteland. It will take years before we will be able to harvest the olives to make more olive oil than we can do at this moment. But you need to start at some point and we have no hurry. By making our home made olive oil we also develop ourselves in learning new things. And by learning and sometimes learning by doing we create more happiness and satisfaction about the things we do. Development is based on learning and being open to that learning.
Last March I fell off my motorbike. Because at that time, actually at all times, my efforts were needed to harvest fruit and other physical work was needed.Therefore it was a very unpleasant surprise that the traumatologist told me my ankle was broken. Coincidentally, it was a day after my fall that I had an appointment with the medic. Originally this appointment was to have some physiotherapy prescription because of the earlier damage on my muscles because of the stamping of the grapes for our wine making. So, with a plaster leg, condemned to stay calm and stuck to a chair and walking with crutches (imagine this on a finca, nearly impossible), I started to study hard about olives. I ordered an extensive book about everything about olives. And started reading and making my own notes about this upcoming project.
Finally I planned to have three varieties in olives and especially those varieties that are strong and suitable for this area. After my recovery and my new start to walk I did some field research as well. Because you need to check in real life around you what is going on and talk with people to acquire some advice on how they did it.
Perhaps you are already questioning why there is a big wasteland? This wasteland used to be an orchard with almond trees. But some years ago a disease affected almost all the almond trees in this area. To prevent more spread farmers were obliged to remove the trees from their lands.
Plowing the wasteland
Next to the desk and field research I did, our grower gave us some advice which resulted in some homework to organize. There was an urge to prepare our land first before new trees would be planted. In January the trees will be delivered, so you would think we have plenty of time. No is the answer. We need the land to be plowed thoroughly, remove the roots left from the almond trees and then the sun can do the rest. With the heat from the sun parasites will be killed. We managed to do so already.
Scam or honesty?
Did you know that eating an olive is best with the pit in it? Once removed the olive loses taste and moisture. And did you know that to become black olives you need to wait longer. It takes about 5 months more on the branches to let them turn into black. It can easily happen that you buy black olives that are green ones that have been coloured in an artificial way. Mind that. Even worse is that you come home with your bought cold pressed olive oil which in reality could be a mixture of oils with no origin of olives at all. Buying with us means that you buy real cold pressed , virgin oil is the other name for cold pressed, from the farmer. You can notify this by its cloudiness, it hasn’t undergone any industrial process. Yes, in fact it is artisanal. Only thing is we don’t own an olive press. We bring our olives to a man in a nearby village who has the olive press. Even when you come with your small bucket of olives you are welcome there. You pay a percentage of your amount of olives for the pressing.
Oil or bites
There is olives to press for the oil, green ones, in October and there is olives to eat, green or natural black. In general they are bigger than the olives used to make oil. Olives are green when you harvest them in October and black around March or April the following year.
You already notice there is so much to tell you about olives. Next year I can tell you more about our development on the wasteland. For now patience in this project.
Patience can be a difficult thing, for us now and then a challenge. But living in Spain makes you change, logically. Different surroundings and a different culture and habits are of influence in your daily life. We often take the best of all, at least we try. For example when people say we do it tomorrow, “mañana, mañana”, you will be very disappointed in trying to have it today done. Or even next week. Keep on smiling!
Un buen fin de semana, a lovely weekend.
Un abrazo fuerte de Mónica