When we arrived here in early November 2020 we knew that the olive harvest was underway, but with so much to unpack, organise and figure out, picking olives was too far down the list. Sadly we had little choice but to watch these green and black pearls fall to the floor while we promised ourselves we’d do better next year.

With twelve months to prepare for the second harvest it still took us almost by surprise! The to-do lists have been as long as ever, and once again the olives kept taking a back seat in our minds. We really hadn’t committed ourselves on big issues like: who was going to pick them? Where were we going to sell them? How do you do it – any of it? 

This was, in a very real sense going to be virgin olive oil!

We were fortunate to get some help with our registration at the local agricultural centre to be licensed as olive farmers. Without help it may well have been another missed harvest. But we duly filled in our forms and met with the official one bright November morning in their offices in Vinaros. 

An hour later, freshly-licensed and as green as our olives, we set off home via the olive press at the bottom of the hill to enquire about how we would process our haul. Our many, many questions largely went unanswered in that first meeting, but we left with a tariff for olive pressing and came home to try and calculate what our first batch of olive oil would cost. As ever we decided that the only way to figure it out was to turn up with some olives, and go from there!

Armed with our net (just one. I know…), olive combs, a set of waggling “fingers”, bags and buckets, we set about teasing our little gems from their branches. The olive comb is a manual process using a tool similar to a small rake on the end of a stout stick. You literally comb the olives off the fine branches onto the nets below. Slow work, but the olives succumb to gravity and generally find the net quite easily.

The waggling fingers on the other hand are a different matter.

Petrol-powered, the user straps themselves into an elaborate harness to help with the weight of the tool and aims the business-end into the tree, resulting in a satisfying shower of olives to fall. However the power of the waggling sends a significant proportion of the olives on a ballistic trajectory in any and all directions, and the further up the tree they start, the further they travel. Harvesting the trees near the swimming pool highlighted just how far as, by the end of just one tree, we had a kilo of olives taking a dip!

With hindsight, a second net was inevitable, and after investing again we carried on the harvest shepherding 100m² of nets which, even in a light breeze have a mind of their own. But we reduced the proportion of olives that escaped into the wild, and began loading our car with bags of bright olives ready for pressing.

Our two labradors follow us around whenever we're working outside, and olive harvesting was no exception.  If managing the nets in the wind was hard, the dogs made it ten times worse, whether sitting or lying on the nets when we were ready to move them, or tunnelling under them to retrieve a ball (or just for the heck of it!).  Seemingly oblivious to showers of olives raining down on them, they stayed by our sides through it all - and we wouldn't have it any other way, would we?!

This year we’ve just pressed a small amount for ourselves and have sold the rest of the crop to the press while we work out what do to next year. But the oil is rich and unctuous, delicious with fresh bread dipped into it, and there is truly something special about using oil from your own olives harvested by your own hands.

If you’d like join in the fun of the Casa de Olivos - Olive Harvest Experience, contact us for more info. And you too could take home a bottle, or two, of your own harvested organic olive oil to enjoy.

Claire & Ed