Back at the start of the year, Charles wrote about our approach to pruning, which is essentially bite by bite (by bite by bite by bite….). I’m not going to lie, it’s an ongoing process! Hopefully your pruning is going well, but if you haven’t started, or don’t know where or how to start, you can get some assistance with this essential olive grove maintenance task by booking in to attend our upcoming workshop about olive tree pruning.
However, given that pruning isn’t the only olive grove maintenance task on the calendar, I thought I’d share how we manage the rest of the seasonal tasks to stay on top of everything olive related on the farm.
It really does help to have these tasks scheduled in advance, although we’re also starting to post reminders for them on our Facebook and Instagram accounts, so make sure you follow us there too.
The good news is that there is some cross over between olive grove maintenance tasks and other areas of farm life. For example, servicing the tractors benefits not just the olive grove maintenance schedule, but also the chicken caravan moving schedule.
Our processing customers and others we have met over the years who have olives they are trying to manage have appreciated having access to our olive grove maintenance calendar. So, without further ado, here’s the promised Annual Grove Tasks Planner.
Oh, and keep in mind, we’re located in the SOUTHERN hemisphere! If you’d like to see a NORTHERN hemisphere version, please click here.
If you would like to be advised of new blog posts, olive or chicken or general farming related information, events we’re hosting or involved with or any other topic that crosses our minds to share, you can join our mailing list here. We don’t email all that regularly, mostly it’s about events, updates on when the harvest season is open for bookings and things like that. I like to keep the ramblings to the blog for the most part!
Nice eggs ceilidh and just checking out your website too! My son has olive trees in there back yard and the olives usually go to waste now but the old guy that lived next door use to put them in jars I think with vinegar or whatever he used he was Italian but unfortunately he died but I like olives and I was wondering when do you pick olives?, there selling there house soon because they moved to there new house in huntly but still have the house and olive trees in epsom! Shame to go to waste the olives!
Hi Christine,
The timing of when to pick olives depends on what you want to do with them. For oil processing, we usually recommend when 60-70% of the fruit has turned, or is turning, purple on the skin. But for pickling table olives, if you like them green, wait until they are yellow ripe (still mostly green but with a yellow tinge to the skin), or fully purple all the way to the pit if you prefer them black. Also, how you want to preserve the fruit will affect the picking time too. Dry salted olives are better when they’re fully ripe, but brined olives are better when still a little firm and underripe.
So, like many things in agriculture, it depends!