Olive Tree

On a general note about olive trees, they do not come into full fruiting bearing until they are at least ten years old.

Although they require a frost-free climate, he wintes need to be sufficiently cool to induce flowering ... but the summers must be long and hot to ensure development and growth of the fruit. They can survive on poor soils but it must be well drained with ample watering when the fruits are forming.

We can have light frosts here and the Alentejo region above us can have severely cold winters ... but they then have horrendously long hot summers, a bit like inland Spain.

 

We had some olives on ours last year, but they were from the years' before flowers (?????) and took all summer to ripen. By the time they were nice and black, there was only about 3 left on the tree!!!! Once I had read up on preparation - I didn't even bother to pick them!!!!
...... and there was me thinking you just picked them and popped them into your Martini!!!

... and I didn't know you had black or green trees either!!!!

such a Numpty!!!!

 

Hi, Honey ... long time no speak, must catch up with you.

You never eat olives straight off the trees ... yuk! The old-fashioned method of preparation is water soaking but commercially I believe they use sodium hydroxide.

The olive tree against my kitchen wall has tiny fruit that start off green then turn black and are horridly bitter. On my friend's trees, they start off green and stay green ... big, fat and juicy and he goes through the hoo-ha of soaking then bottling. I cannot believe they are the same variety.

The common olive is Olea europaea but there are some other varieties ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olea

 

T&O,

I think it would have to be a stately home conservatory for mine it's 8ft tall right now and growing :D

 

Thought I'd show you what they are doing to the olive trees here ... this is in Silves, the old Moorish capital where I shop ... they call them "clouds" ...

 

Hey. I'm with Honey bee. Olives are purely for use in martinis. One olive per litre of martini. (Well you don't want to over eat.) Didn't know you had to go through all that fermentation malarky though until I looked it up on Wikipedia. :D

Trees are lovely though LoL. Just like the sycamores down Scarborough's main street. :rolleyes:

 

Very well kept LoL, somehow they remind me of french poodles, UGGGGH :D

 

Why am I not surprised with your comments, John?

I completely agree with you, pete, and I also must say they have just trimmed them this past week, as they did the huge palms on the main road ... the trunks trimmed as smooth as a baby's bum ... :D :D :D

As the olives are just going into "ripe" season here, I'll get some photos of the green and black olive trees. My friend confirms, his huge green olives wouldn't go black if his life depended on it ... the small ones against my house are going black already.

 

LoL,

lovely pics but them aint right them olive tree's. Very eyecatching but who on earth thought em up! Looks like something maybe i would have done :D

 

Hi LOL Long time no chat!!! Been bit busy.... I agree with AG - they don't look like "proper " olive trees at all - but they still look nice.....
Decided my Olive is definitely ornamental - can'y be doing with all that fuss - much, MUCH easier to get a jar from Sainsburys.... He, he...

 

those round olive trees remind me of the plastic lego trees, but very tidy, no doubt.

 

I have finally got around to getting photos of the green and black olives, fruit and trees ...



That's a couple of Pomegranites in the background to compare the size of the olives.

The top picture is a green olive tree and the lower a black. Sorry about the colour quality ... there is not such a drastic colour difference in the leaves (the sun is currenty behind the black olive tree) but the leaves are slightly bluer.

 

On behalf of the Very Dry martini Association of Europe and the United States of America (Slurpitup for short), for your services to martini drinkers the free world over I wish to thank you for drawing to our attention the hazards an olive goes through before it gets where it belongs - in our martini saucer.

Seriously LoL (and you know that I don't often do serious) I find this thread genuinely interesting as both a gardener and as a lover of olives (even without the martini). PS Got any you can send me stuffed with anchovy? :D

 

So, the black ones are much smaller than the green.
Just out of interest, I wonder just what types/varieties we are sold in the UK when we buy a plant from a garden centre.
I suppose they know it will probably just be for ornamental value so dont bother too much, but there could just be someone out there trying to grow them in a greenhouse for edible purposes.

 

Evening, chaps. I love olives however they arrive, except with horrid creatures in them, pimentos or garlic slivers are okay but that's where I draw the line.

Yes, pete, the black ones are MUCH smaller and the ones on the tree next to my kitchen are the most bitter things you could imagine. Can't even begin to think what they would be used for ... the mind boggles.

The green ones are really quite large, about the size of a grape, and these are the ones they stuff with sometimes horrid things. I must say they are beautiful tasting in their own right.