Harvest is finished and hopefully you are enjoying some fabulous Marlborough Olive Oil. Take a month off from the grove and just enjoy the break
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If you do have some olives left on your trees and can’t bear to see them go to waste then you could try one of the many ways of preserving them. Fleshy varieties work best. Here is a very simple recipe:

Preserved Olives
 
Freshly picked olives                                                   
Salt
Clean sterilised jars

1. Prick your olives with a sharp knife
2. Fill jars with pricked olives
3. Make a brine solution of 100g salt per litre of water
4. Pour brine over olives and screw on lid. Shake jar twice a day.
5. After one week drain off the brine and top with fresh brine. Do this for at least three weeks.  Taste test the olives.  If still too bitter change the brine and leave for another week.  Once the olives taste how you like them you can just leave them in the brine, topped with a little olive oil.

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Its Harvest, Harvest, Harvest this month.

After a year of nurturing your grove now is the month to enjoy the produce. Harvest your fruit with friends, family, neighbours, get it to the press and pick up that beautiful fresh green olive oil.  A few hours (or days) hard work and you can enjoy your own flavoursome olive oil for months to come and/or share it proudly with others. Happy harvesting!
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