Olive Tree

 

Olive Tree - Marin County  2020

Our olive tree. So, it doesn't produce any olives, but it still looks nice. Photo taken with a Nikon Z5, 24-200mm zoom lens.

Slovenia Countryside

Colja Winery - Slovenia  2019

Olives - Slovenia  2019

After our stay at Hisa Franko we wanted to visit the equestrian center at Lipica. We picked a scenic route for the drive there, through vinyards and wineries.

When I pulled over to the side of the road for a photo of Colja Winery I noticed some olive trees growing nearby. Upon closer inspection I discovered olive fruit fly damage! So, not just a problem in California, alas.

Olives

Olive Branch and Blossoms - Marin County  2018

Spraying Olive Tree - Marin County  2018

What a glorious profusion of olive blossoms! Too bad about that olive fruit fly, isn't it?

The last few years I attempted to spray with a growth regulator, with mixed success. This year we're trying a professional service to spray the tree in order to stop it from fruiting. We'll see how it works out.

Olives 2016

Olive - Marin County  2016

There are a few olives, here and there. I've been picking and tossing them as they appear, since they're all showing signs of fruit fly damage.

Alert readers will recall my "Sad Olives" post from last year. This year I decided to give the anti-growth spray a try. I sprayed the tree two separate times with "Florel." It seems to have worked for the most part, but as I said, there are still some olives to remove.

Very annoying! Not so much the spraying and picking, but the fact that there apparently won't be any usable olive crop for the foreseeable future.

Florel - Marin County  2016

Sad Olives

Damaged Olives - Marin County  2015

Alert readers will recall earlier accounts of my experiments with harvesting and brining olives. Alas, the last two years' crops were a total failure due to the presence of olive fruit flies. After last year's disaster I was prepared to give up on any kind of harvest, but I didn't. Instead, this year I installed two (2) fruit fly traps. They're ball-shaped, using yeast pellets as attractant dissolved in water at the bottom. (See below.)

Alas again, they didn't work well enough to protect the olives. Many fruit flies were trapped, but not nearly enough to prevent another total loss.

So . . . what to do? The next option presented at an olive seminar I attended was to prevent the tree from fruiting, either through some sort of chemical spray, or by physically knocking the flowers off in the spring. But you would have to be prepared to do that every year, indefinitely . . .

It might be time to look into replacing the tree with a fruitless variety.

Olive Trap #1 - Marin County  2015

Olive Trap #2 - Marin County  2015

Olives: Sad Story

Olives (Fruit Fly Damage) - Marin County  2014

The 2014 olive story is another one of total decimation by the olive fruit fly.

I guess that's it. I was following a weekly regimen of spraying in the early A.M. (spray approved for organic outcomes) but it clearly didn't work. I'm thinking that having just one tree is just a little bit dicey . . . something that is prescribed for an olive grove might not work for such a small sample.

Next year I'll probably try to prevent the tree from fruiting (supposedly you can do that).

Olive Fruit Fly Control

Olive Grove, McEvoy Ranch - Marin County  2014

As we recall, last year's olive crop was a total loss. So that explains Mike's attendence at the McEvoy Ranch's fruit fly seminar.

So anyway, the key to olive fruit fly control is a substance known as "spinosad." (Link to Wikipedia article.)

"Spinosad is considered a natural product and approved for use in organic agriculture by numerous national and international certifications."

For olive groves, it can be purchased as GF-120 spray at $200 per gallon.

For less substantial needs one can purchase "Captain Jack's Dead Bug Brew." But you'll need to mix it with some molasses to act as an attractant.

Spinosad should be applied to olive trees starting in June, every 7 days in the morning.

I might give it a try this year just out of scientific curiosity. We'll see.

McEvoy Ranch

Olive Trees, McEvoy Ranch - Marin County  2014

Agave, McEvoy Ranch - Marin County  2014

Scenes from McEvoy Ranch, famous for their olive oil derived from extensive olive groves located on the property. I was there to attend an olive fruit fly seminar.

Olives

Damaged Olives - Marin County  2013

Well, this is annoying.

Mike's 2013 olive crop was totally decimated by the olive fruit fly. 100%. There had been some fruit fly damage last year, which Mike didn't mention, but this is far worse.

For those seeking more fruit fly information, please consult this UC Davis publication. So . . . what you're supposed to do as a mitigating measure is make sure that there are no olives left on the tree or on the ground. Then, install fruit fly traps. Then, probably , cross your fingers and knock on wood.

This is annoying.

Olives!

Olives, Washed - Marin County  2012

Olives, Brining - Marin County  2012

Big crop this year! Olives were harvested over a three-week period in November, and are now slowly  brining in a saltwater solution in the garage.

Brining instructions have already been posted.

Olives

Sorting Olives - Marin County  2011

Mexican Sage, Olive Tree in Background - Marin County  2011

At the start of the month, the olive crop appeared to be fairly disappointing, but as the days progressed, more and more started to appear.

So Mike harvested the olives in stages over a 10-day period, adding them to the same brine. His theory is that over time the longish stay in the brine will compensate for the olives being put in at different times. We'll see.

For a detailed look at the whole process, see here.

How to Brine Olives

Following is a little discussion of my Olive Experience of 2010-2011 using olives harvested from the Manzanillo olive tree in our front yard.

Harvesting

Olives ripened at different times on the same tree. In addition, the size of the individual olive seemed to vary; some olives were obviously starting to ripen even though they were much smaller than the average. I waited until I had a mixture of ripe (darker) and unripe (green) olives, then harvested them all within a period of two days.

I’m now thinking, however, that olives should be picked over a period of weeks, as they show signs of ripening (becoming darker and blacker). This is because it seemed that the greener olives took forever to cure using the home brining method.

Curing

There are a number of methodologies to be found via Google. I used four tablespoons of pickling salt to one quart of water. (Actually, I needed two quarts of water to cover the olives, so, eight tablespoons of salt.) After slicing through each olive on one side (to hasten the brining procedure) I placed the olives in a large glass jar, poured the salt mixture in, then floated a plastic Ziploc with some water inside it on top of the jar. The jar was then placed on a shelf in the garage. Every weekend I’d bring the jar into the kitchen, pour out the mixture, rinse the olives off, then pour in a new brine.

I started the procedure on November 7th. After a matter of some weeks it became evident that the riper olives were losing their bitterness much faster than the greener ones. I separated those olives out on January 2nd and placed them in the marinade (recipe below).

They were good! We served them to a large gathering at our house in January to much acclaim.

Meanwhile, I continued the brining procedure with the non-ripe olives. At one point I gave each olive a second cut with a paring knife, hoping to introduce more of the brine into the interior of the olive. In spite of persistent bitterness by the end of February I decided to marinate them as well. A few weeks in the marinade seems to have served to take the edge off the bitterness as well as introducing more flavor. And, they're crunchy!

So in the end the whole process took much longer than I had initially thought it would.

Not weeks. Months.

Marinade:

1/4 C Kosher salt

1 qt water

1/2 cups white wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1 bay leaf

2 cloves garlic

Olive oil (to float on top)


Three earlier posts: Olives, Olives #1, Olives #2. 

Photo: Olives (Last Batch)─Marin County, 2011

Olives Marin No. 2

In early February the smaller, riper olives were deemed to have most of the bitterness removed and were placed into a vinegar marinade. We used an old Central Grocery olive salad jar for the job.

They're actually quite good! The difficulty is that the whole brining process, although not particularly hard, is certainly long and drawn-out. The larger olives are still brining after three full months! Yikes! This might call for a different strategy.

Photo: Olives Marinating─Marin County, 2011

Olives Marin No. 1

Thus we continue the olive theme.

Alert readers will recall the earlier December olive post from last year. At that time the olives had just been harvested and put into a salt brining solution. The photo above illustrates the process.

Photo: Olives Brining─Marin County, 2010

Olives

This year we had a much better crop of olives. The recently-planted tree—a manzanillo, I believe—never produced much fruit in the past few years, but starting in the summer a number of small olives began to be visible. We started to spot more and more as they ripened and slowly changed color.

I harvested as many olives as I could reach last month (November) and started brining them in a saltwater solution.

We'll see.

Photos: Olives on Tree—Marin County, 2010; Harvested Olives—Marin County, 2010