Looking forward to a good olive year in 2016!
‘Arbosana’ and ‘Arbequina’ in a small hedgerow:
Flower buds starting to swell:
Will you pickle them?
I brine them:
And they are delicious.
1 Like
Oh yum. Trade you a jar of olives for a jar of jam. You name it! 
1 Like
Wow, it’s early! All my olive trees look healthy and vigorous coming out of the winter, but no signs of flower bud swelling yet. They mostly bloom in mid-late May for me.
BTW, my 2015 olive harvest is still fermenting in brine, although it reminds me I should check whether it’s ready to be eaten.
I use a ton of California olive oil. I think i add it to just about everything.
I can’t brine enough olives to share. They go fast around here. 
@Stan, I water cure for a week or so and then brine for a very short time in the fridge. Not sure I could handle fermenting for that long.
I just cure olives in plain salt brine for two months, then change the brine and cure for another month and a half or two months. I keep them out of sight in a dark pantry. 
A few fruits that I tasted when changing the brine were still too bitter.
With water curing, the water is changed daily. This method leaches out a lot of the bitterness and only takes a week or so. I also place two lengthwise knife slits in each olive to help release the bitterness and to help absorb the flavors from the brine. My attention span wouldn’t allow me to wait two months for curing.
1 Like
What hardiness zone are we talking about? I have an olive in a pot ,afraid to put it in the ground I am in zone 7 N.C.
jerry
Arbequina?
Jerry, you’re rightly afraid, olives are hardy up to Zone 8b at best. They will not survive a winter in Zone 7, except for a very special microclimate location or unless carefully protected.
Yes.
Z10 for me.
I will repot this spring and put on an automatic walerer I ha d a few olives the first year then nothing last year. I made an uninformed attempt to pickle and failed. This year I’ll look it up
To change subject ,I should leave this one and look for pecan grating?"??
Meistersenger
Now this:
3 Likes
Figured with so many olives I should try and press some olive oil:
You can see the oil starting to float to the top right after pressing. Couldn’t resist dabbing a finger at the surface for a quick taste. Very flavorful. Whether it’s worth the effort is to be determined.
4 Likes
This is one of the coolest post I have seen on here thanks for sharingstrong text
2 Likes
I loosely followed these instructions:
The end game was to go through the process, learn a bit and get a taste of some homemade olive oil…
What I learned:
- My food processor didn’t grind up the seeds. As a result this is not the path to take as I missed whatever flavors they bring to the party. Still a very promising, fruity and flavorful oil was produced.
- I rushed the malaxation step a bit. I assumed that this just impacts oil output vs flavor. And output amount wasn’t a goal.
- If I decide to keep going, it would be with this little tool:
https://www.amazon.com/Piteba-Seed-Press-Pressing-Olive/dp/B00P8RK0Q4/ref=sr_1_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1475877034&sr=1-1&keywords=D2+cap+olives
It certainly makes more sense than this direction:
https://ohhshop.com/blog/greenies/our-own-olive-oil-and-the-cost-breakdown/
1 Like
it is still too early to optener olive oil (at least in my area), at this time still do not have oil on November 20 will have a 12% oil and 20 December 25%, is the ideal time of the collection.
in January and February will have up to 30% but the fruit is already overripe and is poor quality
now is a good time to try the olive trees with a foliar fertilizer that is very rich in potassium one 0-0-30 or 05-05-30 okay
any foliar fertilizer have more than 30% of potassium, this makes the fruit grow in size and is usually between 2% and 5% more performance in the oil.
seems little, but spend 20 liters of oil per 100 kilos of olives to 25 liters of oil is up 20% (and this in large areas of olive groves is much).
1 Like