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The Produce of My Estate: Olives
Jan. 20th, 2013 10:59 pmOne of the assorted trees already thriving in my yard on purchase is an olive tree. Not sure what variety because I haven't bothered to do the research. It's in a suboptimal location and last year I didn't notice anything resembling fruit so I'd marked it down tentatively for removal at some convenient time. But this year I spotted some olives (who knows, maybe I just missed them last year) so the tree gets a reprieve pending evaluation. (Not that the "convenient time" was likely to come within the year anyway.)
Today I went out to pick the fruit and evaluate it for processing. One of the things that had kept me holding off on picking was that the olives didn't appear fully ripe yet, and definitely didn't feel very soft. But when I took a closer look, some of them were beginning to shrivel up so further waiting didn't appear to be appropriate. In fact, some were in a semi-ripe color (about 3/4 black but with green at the stem end) while still beginning to shrivel. This suggests to me that the tree variety may not be optimized for Concord seasonal patterns. Another interesting thing is that the shriveling seemed to be more prevalent on the south side of the tree, whereas the best looking olives were mostly on the north-east corner. This suggests to me that sun patterns are a significant influence on whatever's going on.
The olives are very small, about the size of the smallest commercial olives I've seen (that is, in the "olive bar" section of the deli, not your standard canned olives).
I picked about a gallon of fruit of all qualities. They're currently soaking in water, after which I plan to sort them out according to visual appearance, probably into three categories: black and plump, black and semi-shrivelled, and mixed-ripeness. The first category will get cured. I'm still researching historic curing methods but I'm inclined to try both brine and dry-salt cures. The second two categories I'll probably try pressing for oil, just to see how well it works. I wonder if you can get a very small-scale olive press?
More details when I've had a chance to play with them.
Today I went out to pick the fruit and evaluate it for processing. One of the things that had kept me holding off on picking was that the olives didn't appear fully ripe yet, and definitely didn't feel very soft. But when I took a closer look, some of them were beginning to shrivel up so further waiting didn't appear to be appropriate. In fact, some were in a semi-ripe color (about 3/4 black but with green at the stem end) while still beginning to shrivel. This suggests to me that the tree variety may not be optimized for Concord seasonal patterns. Another interesting thing is that the shriveling seemed to be more prevalent on the south side of the tree, whereas the best looking olives were mostly on the north-east corner. This suggests to me that sun patterns are a significant influence on whatever's going on.
The olives are very small, about the size of the smallest commercial olives I've seen (that is, in the "olive bar" section of the deli, not your standard canned olives).
I picked about a gallon of fruit of all qualities. They're currently soaking in water, after which I plan to sort them out according to visual appearance, probably into three categories: black and plump, black and semi-shrivelled, and mixed-ripeness. The first category will get cured. I'm still researching historic curing methods but I'm inclined to try both brine and dry-salt cures. The second two categories I'll probably try pressing for oil, just to see how well it works. I wonder if you can get a very small-scale olive press?
More details when I've had a chance to play with them.
