Ripening: olives show their true colours
We are sometimes asked whether we grow green or black olives, as if the colours represented two different varieties rather the maturity of the fruit: every olive will turn from […]
We are sometimes asked whether we grow green or black olives, as if the colours represented two different varieties rather the maturity of the fruit: every olive will turn from […]
We have been harvesting in our olive grove for three weeks now, although frequent rain has slowed our progress. The harvest, or raccolta, is a decidedly social affair. Ulivetti (olive groves) […]
After a long hot summer (and an equally long and inexcusable break from blogging) when there was little to do in the grove other than watch the olives grow, it’s […]
The hills of Montalbano, known as le colline di Leonardo (Leonardo’s hills), are prime olive-growing territory. From the top of the hill where we have our olive grove, a endless […]
Summer is a quiet period for olive farmers, particularly the organic sort. The trees have been pruned and the grass mown, the fruit has set, so since we are not […]
Now that the olive blossom has faded, the dominant scent in the olive grove is once again a strong, minty fragrance. Tracing the scent back to its source, I stumbled […]
Although I loved the long-grassed meadow look that our olive grove sported in spring, there are solid reasons for mowing the grass which are impossible to argue with. The tall […]
Split and scarred by winter cold, dried and hollowed out by the sun, and twisted by the wind, the trunks of our olive trees reveal their histories. While olive saplings grow […]
All the wet weather we’ve been having has turned the olive grove into a jungle. With wildflowers growing waist-high, mowing (which we’ve just started) is an epic task, so there’s […]
One of the (many) reasons that I love olive trees is their evergreen nature. In winter, when the neighbouring grapevines are reduced to knobbly stumps, and the naked chestnut trees […]