An 'ology continued.

Tales of an olive grower, where olives aren't expected.

After my visit to Oliveology to taste their beautiful oils, my thoughts turned to my own tree.

I have an olive tree in my front garden that we bought when we first moved here in 2002. Initially she was in a large tub in the back garden, but then we moved her to the front garden because that gets more sun, and Husband popped her in the ground. She was a mere stripling at that point and I’d fallen in love with her from the moment she arrived.

We had to have the outside of the house re-done, which is a whole other saga, and so we also got them to sort out the garden while they were here. A casualty of the mini digger was my tree.

I heard a crunch, and there she was, bent over, a huge piece of bark stripped away. I happily admit that I cried a little. That was the only thing I’d told them to be careful of, and there she was, wounded.

We propped her up as best we could, and I painted her with heal and seal, wrapping her in cling film to hold everything together and treating her to sugar water every day for a week.

Eventually that scar healed over, but we couldn’t fix the angle of her trunk. It’s only become more pronounced as the years have gone on but she’s big and beautiful and most years we get olives.

Once a year, after harvest time has passed, I get her trimmed back into a ball shape and every year she goes wild in a few weeks and grows like mad as if to say “You will not contain me.”

If we were in a place that had olive presses I’d probably get around a bottle of oil from her fruit, but alas we are in England, and I don’t think olive presses are a thing here.

I often joke about Essex olives, but we do get them.

This year they seem more meaty than usual, any my new neighbour - who hails from Morocco - has asked if she can pick them. Of course I said yes. Her mum is directing her in what to do.

I went out yesterday before the rain hit, and filled a small jar for myself.

I washed them and made a small slit with a very sharp knife. In Cyprus I have watched people split them with stones, and then soak them in water to remove the bitterness. You have to. There’s only one olive you can eat right from the tree and that is Throuba - I really do not recommend you try it with any other varieties.

After eight or so days of soaking - changing the water every two days - you rinse them and pop them in a brine to store. When you want to eat them you can can mix them with cracked coriander and lemon to make Eliės Tsakistės, and enjoy.