Olive Harvesting

On a sunny mid-Autumn afternoon Alexx and I ventured into the backyard to do a little olive harvesting from our tall thirty year old tree. Alexx hasn't done any harvesting for quite some time due to his disability but we had a plan. I helped him up the slope to where there was a low hanging branch full of olives. He sat on his tall stool and picked the lower ones while I grazed the higher ones. Alexx powered through the harvest and when he'd stripped the lower branches bare I bent over the higher ones and held them down while he culled them.

The olives are rather small but are the most beautiful mix of colours, many grading down from green through rosy-pink to purple to black. We picked them into a colander.

It was so lovely to be out in our garden working together under Mother Olive. Alexx had a great time and spent the next days soaking and bottling the harvest in brine. Alexx bottles them up in old Ocean Spray Cranberry juice bottles whose narrowish necks are great for holding an olive oil seal.