SPG - gleaning - olives

Post date: May 11, 2017

A member let us know about a friend with olive trees who doesn't like olives!? The friend gave us permission to pick as many as we needed. We put this out to the permaculture group and had several people come and pick on today's gorgeous morning:

olive picking

many trees to choose from:

many trees to choose from

lots of different varieties:

Ready for washing and curing:

olive haul

We'll wash them several times in water over several days. We remove any debris and damaged olives. Then we put them into clean buckets with good quality salt - the ratio is 1kg to 10 litres of water to make the brine. This is changed after 2 weeks. After another 2 weeks they are bottled with culinary herbs and olive oil - we use rosemary, garlic, tarragon, chilli, thyme, oregano. Eat after 2 months. If you want to eat them sooner, then cut eat olives with a knife and they'll marinate in as little as 2 weeks - depends on your taste preference.