Before you plant an olive tree, I suggest that you visit San Juan Bautista Mission and see their olive trees - and the huge mess that they make. You cannot walk anywhere near one of the trees without stepping on crushed olives.

If you still want to proceed, you might get info from The California Olive Oil Council, or you could visit some local growers in your area.

Olive trees are not large, but I have never planted one because of the mess. Figs were bad enough, but I eat more figs than olives. I've also never seen olive trees in residential neighborhoods.

Lars

Check the California gardening forum for additional help.

This post was edited by publickman on Fri, Mar 1, 13 at 16:13

:)

I know they're terrible. There are quite a few in my neighborhood, probably planted in the 1950s. They don't fruit when pruned incorrectly (or correctly, depending on your point of view) so some are messy and some aren't a bit--I think they predate the fruitless cultivars.

Maybe I shouldn't. But there aren't that many fruiting trees so perfectly suited to our climate.

If you can grow olives, you can probably grow figs as well - I think they grow in similar climates. Figs are good to grow because they are rare to find in stores, and you can make great preserves from them when they're in season. If you're in zone 10, you can grow passion fruit, and that is worthwhile also, as the fruit is hard to find in stores.

Lars

We planted a fig last year--it's just a baby still but the neighbors' trees do very well.

Passionfruit is interesting. Maybe after we replace that long section of fence that is about to topple over--the spouse also wants to try kiwi (but not enough to get around to replacing the fence).

I'm from southern CA and it's amazing the stuff you can grow in the bay area. All the citrus plus it's cold enough for cherries. It almost makes up for people referring to the freeways wrong. (It's THE five. Not 5!) :)

I have a friend with two large olive trees in her back yard and one in her front yard. I know that at least once they have picked them and combined them with other people's olives in a community pressing for oil. I'm including a link to possible information.

I don't know if they have cured their olives or not.

Eileen

Here is a link that might be useful: California Olive Oil Council

That sounds fun, Eileen. I think we'd just cure olives, though. It would be a good activity for my daughter who is a really picky eater but has never met an olive she wouldn't eat. If we were going to squash them for oil, I bet I'd have a hard time getting her to do the harvesting! :)

I had an olive tree at the former house and have made both olive oil and a variety of processed olives from the fruit of the tree. It was fun to try, but decided that it was much easier to buy good processed olives at the farmers market than to do it myself. MY Own Opiniion.

However, making olive oil myself was a big project and one I would do again if I have the RIPE, black olives to use. The oil I got was heavenly and not at all bitter.

As to the mess of growing one: mine was out in the field and bothered no one.

Make sure that the tree you plant is away from any hard scape. The cement and brick get kind of slippery with dropped olives and the dark stain is impossible to get rid of. I am in your camp- why grow a tree if it won't fruit. I love bay area that we can grow true French lilacs and avocados. I am looking into fig trees:)

I'd like to learn about curing olives, I may have a source for free olives this year. So I'll watch this thread.

Eileen

I've cured olives several times. I don't have my own tree, but people seem to be happy to have you harvest their tree in exchange for a few jars of finished olives. It's not a hard process, but it takes time, and can be messy.

I'd have to look up the exact recipe, but a quick overview of how i was taught:

1. Each olive needs to be slit, top to bottom, in three places, spaced evenly. (This is the messy part - best to wear gloves, or your fingers wil be stained for several days)
2. The olives then spend a few weeks soaking in water to leach out some bitterness - water should be changed everyday.
   3.Then the olives are soaked in a salt solution for several more days/weeks until the desired balance of salty/bitterness is reached.
3. Pack the olives in jars with an olive oil/ vinegar/lemon/ herb solution to cover.

Olympia

I don' have an olive tree BUT I do have a wonderful recipe.
Lye-Cured Green Olives
Use olives that are mature but still green. Rinse olives with water & place into glass jars. Purchase lye in cleanser section of grocery store. Determine how much lye solution you need to cover olives.
Add ratio of 1 qt water (65 to 70o) to 1 Tbps lye.
Soak for 12 hours
Drain olives; then soak 12 more hours in fresh lye solution. Drain and rinse. Cut into largest olive; if the lye has reached the pit,the lye solution is complete. If nessessary soak in fresh lye bath 12 more hours, drain and rinse with cold water. soak olives in fresh cold water, changing the water three (3) or more times a day for the next 3 day. At the end of three days taste an olive to make sure that thers is no lye taste of flavor. Water should be clear and not pink.
Next soak olives for at least one (1) day in a brine solution: Ratio 6 Tbsp pickling salt to 1 gallon water. The olives are now ready to eat. Store in brine solution in cool, dark place. Refrigerator is great for this. You may add garlic cloves to olives and/or hot peppers.

Linda

Check with your local County Extension Service for a pamphlet on how to do and recipes. I got my initial info from ours.

Thanks all. This does sound fun. I'm rethinking my planting spot, however. :)

This is a few blocks from me. I love it. Obviously these folks keep things tidy and probably dispose of fallen fruit before it hits the ground...and at this point I'm getting way off topic!

To make olive harvesting easier, wear white cotton gloves (they won't stay white for long but better than your hands getting all that black on them) and strip the olives off the branches going from the trunk to the tip of the branch.

In Australia you can get special plastic little rakes with fingers spaced about a half-inch apart, that you rake along each branch in the same direction, after you have laid a large sheet on the ground around the tree. Then you pick up the sheet from either end, making a bag to hold the harvested olives until you can tip them out into a container.

You really only need to do this after the tree has grown up a bit, after 3-4 years.

Oh my gosh, that's gorgeous. I can see the allure. It is torture to live in this climate and not have room to grow anything!!

But Colleen, what would I do with my child workers if I had a tool to collect olives! ? :) That sounds very civilized. Wish I could do that with oranges.

JVand, I lived in the cold North for several years and its nice to be back in olive country! That tree of course is older than me (and has also been better maintained hehe!) but it's one of my favorites. I think olive trees go well with the midcentury California ranch aesthetic. They just look right. Especially when they're all gnarly and topiaried which of course I won't get with a young tree.

Oh, we also love olives.