What's Been Going on in the Campo

30/11/09 Picking Olives

It's that time of year again - well perhaps a bit earlier than most years, as was last year also. We normally recon on picking our olives around Christmas time and our visitors often like to help. This is the second year running however that we have picked them in November.

We only have about a six reasonable olive trees (really only three of those worth picking this year) and the olives on the best tree appeared fully ripe and in danger of falling. We now have quite strong wind this morning which would have caused a lot of the fruit to fall had they not been picked.

We picked a total of 50Kg which we took to the mill in the village. Previous years we have been given a set amount of oil for every Kg we have taken in. This year however they took a sample and tested the oil content in the lab before giving us 7 litres of oil in return. It is beautiful oil and we always look foward to receiving this each year.