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| photo by Gary Barnes |
A Gardener's Guide to Growing and Harvesting Green Olives
The somewhat bitter, crisp, and adaptable green olive is a mainstay in Mediterranean cooking. Picking these olives before they reach full ripeness sets them apart from black olives. If you're considering incorporating green olive trees into your yard, here's all the information you need to know about growing and caring for them.
A Beginner's Guide to Green Olives
The Olea europaea tree typically harvests its unripe green olives at the start of the growing season. The main difference between green olives and black olives is that we select them when they are firm and not yet completely ripe. They go through curing or brining to get the taste you want, even if they're a little bitter uncooked.
Picking the Perfect Olive Type
Many different types of olive trees can yield excellent quality green olives for harvesting. Here are a few common options:
The mild, buttery taste of manzanilla is well known.
A tart, nutty French variation called picholine.
Dinner parties often serve gordal, a large, meaty olive.
When choosing the perfect tree for your yard, think about the weather and soil in your area before making a selection.
Conditions for optimal growth
Once established, olive trees can withstand periods of drought and do best in warm, temperate areas. You must do these things to keep your olive trees healthy and green:
Temperate Zones: Olive trees grow best in warm, dry summers and cool, wet winters. Trees can withstand temperatures as low as 15 degrees Fahrenheit (-9 degrees Celsius), but prolonged cold will harm them.
Soil: Optimal soil conditions include excellent drainage and a slightly acidic pH (6.5 to 8.5). We should not plant olive trees in wet soil due to their susceptibility to root rot.
Light: Olive trees cannot bear fruit unless they get full sunlight. Make sure they get at least six hours of sunshine every day.
Although olive trees can withstand periods of dryness, they still need regular irrigation in the early years. After that, it's usually enough to water once a month during the dry months.
Planting and Taking Care of Your Plants: Advice
You can start olive trees from seed, but it's best to work with young saplings for the first planting. Make a hole that is slightly deeper and twice as broad as the root ball. After placing the tree in the hole, cover its roots with dirt and water it well.
Regular trimming promotes robust development and bountiful harvests. Thin down the canopy so that sunlight can reach the interior branches, and remove any sick or dead branches.
Boost plant life and development with a spring application of a balanced fertilizer. Olive trees typically don't need a lot of food, but a little more nutrients can help them produce more fruit.
Juicing Verdant Olives
When picking green olives, time is crucial. People plucked them early in the season, usually between September and November (though this varies by area and olive type). Find olives that are firm and consistently green in color; avoid those that have begun to turn purple. It is customary to harvest olives by hand or with tiny rakes, taking care not to damage the trees in the process.
Processing and Curing
The high oleuropein concentration of freshly collected green olives makes them bitter; curing them makes them palatable. Here are the most popular curing procedures:
The olives are brine-cured by soaking them in a saltwater solution for a few weeks.
One expedited process is lye curing, which involves removing bitterness with lye and then soaking in brine.
Dry curing is the process of coating olives in salt and letting them cure for a long time to give them a wrinkled texture.
Once cured, you can marinate the olives in vinegar, brine, olive oil, or both to improve their flavor.
Managing Pests and Diseases
Though olive trees are typically pest-free, they may be infested with olive fruit flies and scale insects from time to time. You can regularly use organic pest control treatments like neem oil and insecticidal soap to prevent these pests. Pruning trees properly and providing adequate air circulation is crucial to prevent fungal diseases like olive knot and verticillium wilt.
Cultivating Green Olives: Advantages
Green olive trees are lovely accents to any yard, and they provide nutritious, tasty fruit to boot. With the right care, these trees may survive for millennia and look beautiful all year round with their gnarled trunks and silvery-green foliage. Olives are an excellent crop to cultivate since they are full of vitamins, antioxidants, and healthy fats.
In conclusion
As a newbie gardener, you may find growing green olive trees to be a bit of a hardship. However, if you are patient and give them the attention they need, they will repay you with copious harvests for many years to come. Growing your own green olives is a wonderful investment for any home gardener, whether you want to eat them raw or press them into oil.