Bringing in the Olives
It's rather wet here in the Algarve at the moment. We have had several
thunderstorms, and this last week there has been quite a downpour. The
river that runs through my garden is a torrent carrying vast quantities
of debris along at breakneck pace in the water, brown with the
washed-off soil that gets carried down to the estuary.
Our annual gardeners' jamboree got almost rained off, and I decided to
miss out on the St Martins festivities, so no chestnuts and new wine
for me this year.
I have been struggling to finish off the gathering in of fruit and
nuts. The last of the pomegranates have been picked, and I now have a
fridge full of small red berries which I'm using with salads, and my
breakfast cereal. I'm also going to try and squash some into juice.
The next fruit to harvest was the olive. We have two main trees which
I've now managed to strip. I've also chopped down the top branches to
make one of them more manageable. I'll attack the other one next year.
I didn't get as many olives as I'd like to have picked because one tree
is much more advanced than the other, and we ended up with rather a lot
of fruit on the ground. Still, I boxed them all up and took them to the
depot where they were weighed, and then chucked into a hopper which
emptied onto an elevator, which in turn dropped them into the back of a
wagon. They get sent away and pressed. The fresh juice comes back and
is pumped into a large holding tank and we have to come back in
December with our empty plastic canisters to fill up with the green
juice. It is lovely and sweet. I still have an inch or so left of last
year's oil. The shop bought stuff is pathetic by comparison.
My next job is to collect the walnuts, which are pathetically small
this year as it's been so dry for so long.
By the end of the month the oranges will be ready, so off we go again.
john