Citruslover, I will give you my non-expert opinion on an olive tree. Arbequina seems to be recommended quite often for home growing and/or patio growing despite the fact that it is not a dwarf tree. I planted one that was about 5ft tall about a year ago in a half whiskey barrel. It produced probably 10 pounds or more of olives for me this year. It has not grown much taller, but has filled out some. I used miracle grow moisture control potting soil and the tree seems to be as healthy as can be. There is most likely someone else on this forum that will recommend some concoction of soils that is much better suited, but this is what has worked for me. The only problem I have seen was some scale, but I used Insecticidal Soap to keep it in check. Just make sure you bring your tree inside when temperatures get down around freezing and I think you will be fine. From my research it seems they adapt quite well to a decent sized pot, and if necessary, you can prune them back to whatever size you need. As far as fertilization, I dont have much input for you. I know that olives are not very heavy feeders, and I plan on just adding some compost to mine in the spring and seeing how it does. One thing I recommend before you start this endeavor is to research how laborious it is to turn an olive into something edible. You cannot eat them right from the tree as they are very hard and bitter. There are several ways to cure them. I tried brining with salt water and marinating them this year and they came out o.k. but it takes several weeks to brine them with several water changes in between. They also did not all ripen at the same time so I ended up with several small batches that I was changing the water in at different times. One arbequina is that the olives are a little on the small size, about the size of a large blueberry, so if you want great big olives maybe you should look into another variety. The last thing I will tell you is that there is a wealth of knowledge on this forum about these trees and I am quite sure all of your questions have been asked before. You could have probably found all of this information and more by using the search bar.

I'd recommend the Manzanillo. There's a strain available from Dave Wilson Nursery that grows in a bush form for commercial plantations.

both replies came from z8+ ... you are z5 .....

i am not sure there are z5 olives ... the season may not be long enough ... from pollination to harvest ...

ken

Citruslover1, Ken is spot on. You probably will not be able to mature your olive fruit. A 1/2 wine barrel will keep the tree alive and a size that you could roll into your basement. Getting a reasonable sized harvest is another story.

When I lived in the centeral Valley of California I had 12 different varieties of olives. They were easy to grow there but hard to process. There were years when I over processed my olives and lost the whole crop.

The trees usually are kept about 15'-25'. Each one will give you over 40 gallons of fruit. Yours may give you 1 quart to 1 gallon.

Lots of varieties to choose from if you contact California olive nurseries.

The newly bred "bush" Manzanillo (table olive) and Picual (oil olive) are kept at 8' high and their growth habit is 3'-4' wide. This is preferred for the new methods of mechanical harvesting and homeowners as well. The yields of a mature bush are high (10-20 gallons) for their size.

Moving them indoors to ripen the harvest and overwinter is not out of the question IF you use true daylight spectrum (6400-6500 Kelvin color temperature) T5 HO or VHO light fixtures with 8 4-ft bulbs per fixture. You'll also need to keep the air temperature at or above 75F during light hours and above 50F at "night".

Anyone contemplating growing olives should understand that they need to be cured before eating. The millennias-old method is to suspend a burlap vortex below the tree (or bush) directed into a barrel. The empty barrel is initiated with about a 1/4 inch of sea salt when fruits are nearing ripeness. As the fruits ripen, the tree is shook (and the wind blows) causing olives to cascade into the barrel. With each layer of an inch or so of olives -- or every week -- whichever comes first -- another 1/4 inch (1/2 centimeter) of sea salt is added. At some point the harvest is over and the barrel is sealed for about a month. Now the olives could be used for fresh eating or oil production. However, in some cultures the practice of further curing them in vinegars, etc. takes place. In the last century, large scale producers completely skip the salt curing and have their own methods of production cure and bottling.

This post was edited by Hermitian on Thu, Dec 4, 14 at 20:18

Wow!! Thank you all for your advice and input. I really didn't realize how much has to get done before you can actually eat an olive. I don't mind the work at all. Love trees. I have all types of fruit trees ranging from citrus to apple, peach, pear, cherry, plum. Grow my own veggies too. But I just needed to find out about olives because I love to eat the olive and cook with the oil. So much healthy for you. My main concern was my zone. Not during the spring and summertime. But the fall and wintertime. I have had luck with my citrus trees bringing them in and placing under my hps fixture light. I would really like to try growing an olive tree. But I guess would need more info. As in what type of soil and fertilizer to use. And pruning. I thank you all once again for your help :) anymore advice would be greatly appreciated.

Olives aren't fussy about soils but a good loamy mix will help them perform better. It sounds like the soil you are using for your Citrus will work just fine. The bush types benefit from training on a central pole - a 5' bamboo rod will do. Potassium is critical for most fruiting plants, choose a fertilizer with NPK ratios of 2:1:3 such as 10-5-15 or 16-8-24.

Thank you Hermitian for your advice. I think I am definitely going to try and see what happens. I really do have a green thumb lol and would love to expand my knowledge and experiences as much as I can. An olive tree I think will be more of a challenge for me. Which makes me even more wanting to get into learning about growing and brining. Now I have to see which variety will be the better choice in keeping it trained in a container and keeping it smaller..