Greek Olives ~ A Time to Reap

Nets, Saw. Rakes. . .Ready. Set. Go. . .this year's olive harvest took place at The Stone House on the Hill last Saturday.  That quiet, peaceful sanctuary of a grove that I wrote about in the last post came to life with a flurry of activity as it always does during this annual ritual.  

Olive harvest 2020 - The Stone House on the Hill

Under a Mediterranean sun with a cloudless blue sky background - and with temperatures that reached 77F/25C before the day was over -- The Scout and The Scribe set out to harvest our olive crop with the assistance of two paid workers and a good friend who had volunteered for this rather arduous endeavor.

Raking olives from the branches

Our grove is small by industry standards, 17 trees. It requires only one day's work if we stay focused on the job at hand. Luckily, the fellow who directs the operation makes sure we do just that.  Because of the layout and the size of the grove, our harvest is done as it has been traditionally done for centuries here in Greece: by hand. 

Beating the branches, olives fall on the net

Every olive is either beaten, raked or plucked from the branches. It requires skill in knowing which branches need to be cut from the tree and which simply need to be beaten until those hard little green pebbles full of  oil go flying onto the net (or the heads of those beating cut branches below).  Luckily, the one directing the operation knows which to cut and which to whack!

Bagging the olives

Our grove is steep-terraced, ribbons of narrow land that cascade down a steep hillside. Just climbing the steps between terraces is a good workout but add to it a few hours of beating branches and we former city slickers know that we have put in a real day's work.

Koroneiki olives -small and filled with oil

I laugh when thinking back to that  romanticized vision I had of olive harvest (back in the days I read Frances Mayes' 'Under the Tuscan Sun') as I saw us eating a lavish lunch that I had miraculously prepared while also helping harvest, and we'd sip some wine and laze away a few afternoon hours basking in the wonder of the experience.  The reality is that I prepare sandwich fixings in advance, pull them out when break time arrives. We sip soft drinks, water or maybe beer. No time to dilly-dally as the harvest needs to be finished and the fruit delivered to the local processor. 

Another harvest under our belts

This year was the low-harvest year in the cycle of olive harvests; one year is high yield and the next is low-yield, as with many crops. So, harvest was - thankfully - completed within four hours as compared to over six hours last year.  We gathered 245 kilos/ 540 pounds of olives this year as compared to 377 kilos/831 pounds last year.

Nets are bagged up for this year

With three of the  five-member harvest crew being of 'boomer age' we congratulated ourselves when the last bag of olives was hauled up to the parking level (on the shoulders of the two younger crew members), because we'd made it through another harvest - a gauge to aging, in our minds. 

From Olive to Oil

We are up next!

The real magic of olive harvest comes in the evening when, at the appointed hour, it is time for our olives to become that emerald green nectar, extra virgin olive oil.  We often call the plant where this happens the 'olive press' but the reality is that, it is a processing plant with a complex system of  computerized tanks and machines that clean, prepare and process the olives. 

That's our crop!

It takes nearly an hour from the time they are dumped until the oil flows from spouts at the other end of the plant. 

On the way to washing, removing leaves

It is one of my favorite hours in life.  This was our fourth harvest and I was as giddy at the plant this year as I was that very first visit.  

Fresh bread, hours old olive oil

Taking deep breaths of air, thick with the vapors of olive oil, sitting in the break room eating a piece of fresh baked bread dipped in hours old olive oil and watching the steady procession of others who are bringing in crops, makes the time fly by.   

Separating water and oil 

It really seemed so little time had passed but the owner pointed a finger at us, then wiggled it, bringing us to the final processing machine - the one in which the water and oil are separated. . .then in seconds another employee pointed to the machine behind us, where wonder of wonders, our oil was flowing out the faucet. 

Vintage 2020!

Our oil.  Forty-seven kilos or 13.6 gallons. Two-thirds of our last year's harvest. A successful yield despite a drought and  a long-hot summer.

Last step: and harvest is a wrap!

Another year in the history books.  Another highpoint of expat life. Oh, what we would have missed had we not taken the chance to 'live differently' for a bit of time in Greece!

Thanks for being with us as we celebrate another harvest. As always we appreciate the time you spend here. Our wishes that you and yours continue to stay safe and be well. Hope you'll be back again soon and bring some friends with you!!

Linking soon with:

Mosaic Monday
Through My Lens
Travel Tuesday
Our World Tuesday
My Corner of the World Wednesday
Wordless Wednesday

In Greece ~ An Olive Grove Getaway

The air was still in our olive grove this morning, unlike yesterday when gusts were strong enough to send empty flower pots and chair cushions flying. Strong enough to make us wonder if those olives, so close to harvest, would continue to cling to their branches ~ but as always, they withstood the storm.

Our traditional Greek ladder in our grove

Walking among the recently sprouted wild cyclamen the sunlight through the tree branches was soft; an autumn sun, hot, but not with the intensity of summer.

Morning in our olive grove

The quietude of the morning was so intense that the waves slapping the shore in the harbor below echoed across our hillside terraces. It was the only sound to be heard.

Stairs link the terraces in our grove

Our Olive Grove - it is one of my favorite Greek destinations and luckily it is only footsteps away. While savoring my quick getaway, I realized that I often 'talk about' the grove on FB but that I haven't taken you there in quite some time, if ever.  

Stone House on the Hill from our olive grove

Our Stone House on the Hill was built in an olive grove. We have a neighbor's grove to one side of us and our grove stretches several terraces down from our home. In the distance the hillsides are covered with the silver green of olive groves. We live in the land of the Kalamata olive. 

Olive groves carpet the countryside

Technically we are in the land of the 'koroneiki' olive, a smaller fruit with a high ratio of skin to flesh which is said to give our 'Kalamata oil' its aromatic qualities. The larger olive, that you would recognize as 'the Kalamata olive' often served on Greek salad, is simply called 'the salad olive' around here.

Some of our Koroneiki olives just weeks away from harvest

Our grove of 17 trees, somewhat small by industry standards and just the right size by ours, was an unexpected bonus of this house when we bought it. We knew nothing about growing olives back then - had no idea how to tend the trees nor when one would harvest the bitter green fruit they produce. Siga, siga, slowly, slowly, as they say here, we have learned. And have so much more to learn.

'The Scout' at work in the grove - February burn season

In fact our lives, just as most who live in this area, evolve around the olive grove these days. Whether it is time to prune, time to clear, time to burn cuttings, time to spray, time to harvest. . .each task is tied to a season, an ages-old rhythm of life in this rural area of Greece's Peloponnese. So important is the olive here that restaurants and retail businesses gear their operations around 'the seasons of the olive'. Many are beginning to close now in preparation of olive harvest which will begin in mid-October and continue through December.

The summer's drought turned some olives purple

Greece devotes 60 percent of its cultivated land to olive growing. Messinia, the region in which we live, has some 15.863 million trees.  So many olives are grown in our region, that by the end of the 19th century, there were 20 olive presses operating within the city of Kalamata, the big city to our north. These days the processing plants are located outside the metropolitan area in or near the villages sprinkled about the countryside.  We have five such presses within five miles of our home.

A favorite spot in our grove

 Sometimes though the harvest and production of the oil is secondary to the joy we get just being in 

the grove. It is easy to lose track of time when wondering among the trees pondering who might have planted them a century or so ago and the events that have occurred around them during that time. 

Life in the grove continues. . .

Looking at the fruit dragging down youthful branches that have sprouted from old gnarled stumps assures me that even in a year as unsettled as this one, life will continue no matter how upside down the world might feel.

A peace that surpasses all understanding. . .

Often times the early morning or late afternoon sun rays through the trees turn the grove into a peaceful sanctuary - the beams as powerful and reassuring as those coming through any church window. The Biblical phrase, 'a peace that surpasses all understanding' comes to mind. A moment of stillness, a few deep breaths and the inner compass is reset.  

Wild cyclamen at the Stone House on the Hill

Hope you've enjoyed your time in the grove today and hope we will see you back again when I will tell that pirate's tale I promised in the last post.  I've got to admit that I've been researching another article for a publication and just didn't get the pirate story researched and written.  

Where ever you are, we hope that you are coping with the continued COVID prevention measures and that you and yours are well. 

Linking with:

Mosaic Monday
Through My Lens
Travel Tuesday
Our World Tuesday
My Corner of the World Wednesday
Wordless Wednesday