I can’t believe it’s that time of year again already! Over the last week or so we have seen a few people coming down to their fincas to pick the olives – it seems almost everyone here has at least a few trees!
Last year we managed to harvest 246 kilos from our nine trees which gave us 31 litres of extra virgin olive oil, and beautiful it was too!
Now back in the UK I might have used 2 or 3 litres of oil in a whole year, so I was a bit bewildered at the thought of what I was going to do with 31 litres, but just in normal everyday cooking we’ve used 16 litres this year! Wow! It goes into everything, and I no longer buy salad dressings, we just use olive oil – and it’s soooo good for you! It really is the backbone of Spanish cooking.
So we’ve made a short video of this years harvest to show how we pick them. We tried various different methods last year but found this way the most successful! It’s very therapeutic – well, the first few trees are, then your back starts to protest a little and your hands get a bit sore – but do you know what, we don’t mind one bit!!
The harvest is much smaller this year – the terrace with the olive trees was so overgrown that after the harvest last year we gave them a really hard cut. Olives grow on second year wood, so whilst this years harvest is small, we can expect a better crop next year. So, here’s a short video showing just how easy it is to harvest olives!
So off we go to the olive mill in Canjayar with our harvest …
So that’s it for another year – time to start all over again!
