a practical guide to picking olives

 

… that will probably be most impractical.

1) Weed-whack the grass and brambles and fragrant herbs (thyme, mint, fennel seed and many other I can’t identify) that have grown up below the trees.  This is called strimming if you’re British (as our friendly fellow wwoofer Lucy is).

2) Spread out a big net beneath the tree and stake up the downhill side of it to catch the olives.

3) Comb the tree.  This reminds me of trying to get a hair brush through my tangles after spending several hours in the mineral waters of the Blue Lagoon, except that combing the olives out is much easier.  The main challenge is the height of the branches, especially in trees that missed their pruning appointment last spring.

You can use a ladder…

… or you can climb the tree.

4) Pick up the net and funnel the olives into a bag.

5) Store them until you have 300 kg and you can take them to the olive oil press.

6) Repeat.

We’ve been picking olives since Tuesday here at our third wwoof farm in Umbria (about 27 km from Perugia).  It is beautiful. 

The work is fun and the work day is shorter than other places (about 5 hours). Our hostess and the other wwoofer are personable and the food is scrumptious organic vegetarian fare.

Apparently Thursday is gnocchi day in Italy and so yesterday we had hand made gnocchi with white truffle sauce, which is characteristic of Umbria. It was amazing.

It is QUITE cold though, probably freezing at night and low fifties during the day with a lot of wind and some rain.  Our apartment doesn’t have heat now, so we collect fire wood and sleep under lots of blankets.  Oh and we have been drinking more tea and hot water than ever.