Tomorrow the olives start their journey from tree to oil.

Hi Amber, lots of sweat and hard work. I think the machines make it a lot physically harder as they are heavy and it is not easy to get to some of the trees. In the older days it was just beating them with sticks and the older people still do it that way, and use their donkeys to carry, whilst the fitter people use machines and big trucks. Just my seven trees will take half a day for someone using machines.

With machinery often making things harder to accomplish, it begs the question why do we often use it? Though I guess it may be harder and take longer in some elements, but in others be easier in the long run. I think it'd be much more fun to beat the olives from a tree!

They laugh when I try to help as I simply stand at a low branch and run my fingers down it and the olives come off with no leaves or branches so my bag has nothing but olives in. They are very clean to pull off and never sticky. The machines are noisy but yes, it makes the work easier when there are a lot of trees to be done.

Hello slobodanv, I'm ashamed to say I know nothing about Montenegro though you are not too far away. Is it pretty much a closed country like Albania and Serbia or more westernised? We too have a few of the original stone presses but I haven't seen them in action, most of them now use electricity. Our oil is also extra virgin. Do you export yours and is it like here where everyone has some trees of their own?

First time I'm hearing of mouldy olives. Do they turn mouldy easily though..?

Anything like that can go mouldy if it isn't done properly, I remember my experinece bottling my own artichokes, complete disaster as they went black and mould within a few days.

Hi deebomb, no eating olives aren't soft at all, they are like rock hard bullets and completely inedible, they taste vile. The old method of making them edible took forty days but that is now cut down to about 20 for home made. They need to be soaked in salt water for at least 20 days with the water changed daily. I've never done my own as friends give me jars of theirs ready done but keep threatening to give me the olives and show me how to do them myself. Something is bound to go wrong though and I'll end up with mouldy olives.

Thanks Thea. That gives me a better idea. The only oil we get here (I think - I'll check on Wednesday when I shop) is Italian or Australian. I don't think I've seen Greek. The Australian is said to be excellent quality, but I wouldn't know. Another question. I think you said somewhere that the press sells the residue and somewhere else gets it to produce non-virgin oil. Do you get portion of the residue that is sold? Or is the value of that added to your payment for the oil? Doesn't seem fair that you wouldn't get a percentage. We were sugar cane farmers until we retired 12 years ago. Our sugar cane is cut and loaded into bins and gets delivered to the sugar mill. We were paid by tonne of cane per ccs test (sugar content) Re-thinking that last question. I suppose it is similar to cane. The rubbish left when the sugar is crushed from the stalk is used for other things but we received nothing for that. We burn our cane before it is cut. I'll see if I can find a pic of a cane fire.

Hi cloudwatcher, some of your questions are a bit tricky as we usually have a good year then a lean year, but last year was dire and this year should be excellent, so the the only value is on how it was 2 years ago and the first sacks will need to hit the press before the olive farmers really know how muh oil they are likely to get per tree, and the price. Oil is processed individually whether they lug in 2000 sacks or 2 sacks. Each person gets their own oil for their personal use and if they are selling it onto the press it stays there but isn't usually mixed with another persons. The press put it into tins for what one takes away, usually 5 kilo tins or 18 kilo tins. The press claims a tax on each kilo of oil it presses. The funny thing with that is my trees were done by my ex 2 winters ago and were in a pretty bad state as hadn't been pruned so needed a lot of vital chopping. He took my olives to the local press for me as I wasn't selling any, whereas he had 800 trees so was taking his further away for a better price from the press who were buying most of his oil. So when he called in to pick up my tins he was shocked as the guy at the press said that one of my tins had been a kilo short so he's made up the tin and as he knew the olives were mine he wasn't charging any tax so it cost me nothing. The ex thought this was the strangest thing he'd ever come across in his olive picking history and the story soon swept round the villages that not only had I not been charged tax but my tin had been made up. Price 2 winters ago was the press would pay 3 euros per kilo for the oil which was standard, the ex took his further and got 4 euros a kilo which was about the highest price at the time. I don't know what this years price will be or how much oil per tree until the presses go into action, then everyone will be comparing tree yield. If I remember right the ex was getting on average 6.5 kilos per tree and had 800 trees. Minus the 150 kilos of oil kept back for the family use that's in the region of £20,000 plus those with a large number of trees also get a subsidy from the EU for farming their trees. The price is probably dependant on how much the press has negotiated selling it on for. It explains why it is so expensive in the shops though as the 4 euros per kilo is before bottling, export costs, retailer costs.

I've no idea on payment for the residue at all as never my oil, I'll have to ask next time I go in the cafenion.

Oh Wow!! 50kg over their shoulders? I couldn't do that too, Thea.. So if you are not Greek, what are you, then. Don't mind me asking, or perhaps you have mentioned but I have forgotten..

I thought you both knew, I'm from England originally but am more than half way Greek now.

Hi Zed, no rubber at all, just olives. I'm looking forward to having my own oil but I need to wait till my friend finishes his own and then he'll do mine for me. If I was a Greek woman I'd have to do them myself but they just presume I'll be inept as foreign so need a hand. You should see the Greek women though just throwing sacks of olives over their shoulder at 50 kilos, there's no way I could do that.

Glad you enjoyed it Lina. I may well be not the only one who got my oil filled up and I expect the guy at the press who I know did it for fun as he knew they were my olives. They do like me round here because everyone knows my son and thinks he's wonderful and of course the word is round that I support him alone so they do help out with little things, but not paying tax flabergasted the ex, he just couldn't get over it.

Thea, that sounds like such an awesome experience and plus you get your own oil and just that makes food taste better when you have had a hand in growing it (well, it felt that way for the tomatoes we had). I hope the weather is splendid for you and I really enjoyed the description of just sitting on a rock and gazing about until someone needs water. But I think sitting in a net and tossing out big twigs paints me a rather humorous looking picture in my head. I read your answers in Cloudwatcher's box, from the very little time I have been on myLot, it appears to me that you are quite unique, in your village, (no one else had their oil tin made up and not charged) and here on myLot! (smile)

What a quaint story! Did she get down okay then? Sounds like a big job to be sure!

Oh yes, she was lifted safely down.

Hi Gerty, I have a friend who's elderly mother was up a three legged ladder picking from the branches and she lost her footing and the ladder fell away. She was left hanging and clutching onto the higher branches calling my friend for help, despite the fact that his brother and father were both nearer. She declared in typical Greek mama style that they were too stupid to get her down in one piece.

Hi sudiptacallingu. no pics I'm afraid, you obviously aren't familiar with my technophobic problems which once and for all meant the last pictures are the last pictures as they took me hours to upload. There is a pic on my profile page though of olive coming fresh from the tap in the press. I'll get enough olive for my use and it will be wonderful to know it's my own, generally the Greeks have lots of trees scattered over the place, a lot in this area with about 800 on average. They retain enough oil (about 50 kilos per person) for themselves and sell the rest at the press direct. The press doesn't charge to press them but levies tax on the amount pressed. No one extracts the oil at home and there is a large number of presses to choose from in the area. I use the nearest one as know the family who own it and he's honest, but some take their oil further to get a better sale price but they have to committ to so many sacks to get a good price. Hope that explains, there's lots more information in the other responses.

Hi anne, it's not actually the best time to visit as the weather can be very changeable and everyone disappears to the fields. Having said that the first time I saw it all going on it was a pretty unusual sight. In the hills there will be old couples doing their trees with a donkey along. Our oil is exported though and is the best.

[b][/b]POWER OUT AGAINIgnore my questions...I see most are answered...SorryCould not read discussion before replying...HUGZ

Hi snugglebunnies, I've never had any excess to sell off, wish I did, and was almost ran out this year but the avatar gave me some of his. I expect I'll get plenty this year as the trees are full. If they were low enough it would be really easy and quiet to pick them by hand as all you need do is run your hands down a branch and they come off with no mess at all.

Thanks for the interesting info, Thea.

Hi Aunty, this isn't for eating olives, this is the huge olive oil harvest, a much different process as it is the main business round here, picking the olives for oil to export.

Hi Malpoa, I've given most of the answers already here to the other responses. Briefly though the olives are picked and taken to the press who turn them into oil. People are starting to do their own again now as the cheap labour from abroad was not worth the effort with trees damaged, demands being made, untrustworthiness. A friend is doing mine, the Greek has his own to take care of on his land, he has 200 trees there plus land in other places so I wasn't asking him to drag all his machines down here as well so a local friend is doing mine when he's done his. The people who have lots of trees sell their oil to the press for exporting and depend on the income from it. I've seen people skimming up coconut trees on televsion, very sure footed. It must take a lot of practice to do that like an expert.

Hi rg, the best olive oil is best reserved for salads and dressings if you have to buy it, we use it for literally everything as have it in abundance but for those who find it expensive abroad there's no need to cook with the best extra virgin olive oil, olive oil alone is fine.

Otherwise they'd get a bad name.

I protest the double standard. You never see extra virgin corn oil... OK Dawn is done being silly...

Hi marti, as yet I have no idea how much my trees will produce in actual oil but I think as it's the good year of the two year harvest and I had none last winter, plus with all the rain we've had, that the actual olives will probably yield a lot more oil than usual this year. I really don't know if I'll have excess but we do have an olive press just a couple of kms away which ships bottles direct from the local trees. I did have plans a couple of years ago to buy the oil from a friend at the same price as the press would pay him and then bottle it and sell it tourists but nothing came of it, as the plan was for last winter which ended up being a really dismal harvest. It really is a long business starting off an olive tree though marti as they don't fruit at all for the first seven years. I have a very small olive tree outside my bedroom rather than down in the olive grove and we thought it was a baby tree but apparently it's about twenty years old. Some of mine down in the grove though are a few hundred years old and are enormous. I hope you get to grow your tropical fruits one day but I'd give up on the thought of olive trees.

I've no idea TD, olive stuffing must go on in a factory somewhere else, the ones done round here are just for home consumption as although there are eating olive trees in the area there are not huge amounts, we mainly produce just oil. I would imagine its some pitiful rate of about 3.50 euros an hour which as you know is a lot less in dollars.

Hi haiershen. I never heard before of a peach crop in China, how interesting. Is it a relatively new thing? Which area are you from, it sounds lovely. Not the cold north by the sound of it. Are they also grown for export? It is really the first time I've ever heard of peaches being grown in abundance anywhere, it was the kind of thing I imagined people had the odd tree. We have orange trees here which produce all year round but hardly noticeable here because of the olive trees, but on the coast opposite the orange trees are everyhere and look lovely.

I shall look Banshan up on the map, the peach harvest sounds lovely.

there is a small village called BANSHAN in HangZhou city, in here, on the beginning of Mar would be hold a show and welcomed to watch the peach flowers.this activity always lastest from more than three days. yes, it is very lovely.in you eyes,you cann't see anything,but for the flowers of peach.i guess the peach would be export.good luck and have a nice day!

I won't know until the tins come back from the press, it depends how much oil the olives yield but it should be a lot this year as it was so wet for so long at the beginning of the year, and again now. Not to worry though this year as the Greek can lose a few tins to me as he's got 200 trees on his land.

Ha, never been seen in a headscarf in my life Sunny, and unfortnaltey olives don't go in nice picutureque baskets, they go in great big sacks, which reminds me I must borrow some at the weekend.

tradition has given up to convenience. but sometimes people do prepare themselves before coming infront of the camera....