Tag Archives: olive harvest

Olive Harvest 2011

Posted on by Meg
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Just a quick post to show you some photos from the Astrolabe Farm olive harvest for this year.

On our first day of picking we had quite a large team of friends and family and we mostly picked by hand, with the assistance of a backpack harvesting machine we have christened ‘Fingers’ that shakes the olives down.

The second day helpers were a little thin on the ground as it was a week day so we experimented with hitting the trees with old broomsticks to shake the olives off. It sounds brutal but it doesn’t seem to harm the trees and is quite traditional. We brought in a bumper crop that day in record time and managed to get the olives to the press before a rather nasty southerly swept in.

All photos by Nicola Forrest-McLernon and Arabella.

Olive tree on a beautiful Marlborough day

It was an absolutely beautiful day for our first pick. I stepped off the plane from Wellington (where it was windy and rainy) to a clear, crisp and sunny South Island day.

Simon and 'Fingers' the olive harvester

Olives shaken or picked onto the nets for collection.

Jane empties olives from the net into a bin

Freshly harvested olives

Delicious harvest feast of bacon and egg pie, buffalo sausages and pumpkin soup

Who's this mystery woman? Come back next week to find out!

Who’s that girl? Visit the blog next week to be introduced to the latest addition to the Durvillea team…

Rainy day olive picking

Posted on by Meg
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This Saturday was our second day of olive picking for 2010. We are lucky to have volunteers that help every year to bring in the harvest. This year’s team were Jane, Simon, Meg, Arabella, Sophie, vineyard manager Nick, Jono (for the third time in a row!), my aunt Sarah, uncle Stuart, and cousin Rose. Later in the day we also had help from Stephen and four year old Reuben (who was particularly good at getting to the hard to reach fruit).

The day dawned wet and gloomy so we delayed our start to 9:30. We pick the bulk of the olives by hand but this year we borrowed a machine to help us reach the very highest fruit. The machine is basically a large vibrating fork that shakes the fruit off the branches. We lay out nets to catch the fruit and then empty it into small plastic bins and then tip those into a larger bin.

Although the trees were wet picking was pleasant and social as usual. Olive trees are a good height for hand picking. As someone pointed out the downside to olive picking is that it is one of the few fruit crops that you can’t snack on while picking. Olives off the tree taste terrible! Its amazing how delicious they are once pressed into oil or marinated into table olives.

Arabella was on kitchen duty and prepared a delicious lunch of scones and soup. After a half hour break we were back at it and we finished up by 3 pm which we were very pleased with. Our bin was full to the brim with 406 kgs of olives and while Simon drove it off to be pressed the rest of us enjoyed a cold beer. As I write today Simon is off to pick up the freshly pressed oil.

Today is fairly wet in Marlborough and we are pleased that we got the olives in yesterday! It is really satisfying knowing that the fruit is picked and pressed and we can look forward to having another year’s supply of delicious home produced olive oil. You can see more photos on our Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/durvillea/

- Meg

Winter Harvest down on the Farm

Posted on by Jane
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Nets up, after the Riesling was picked

Gosh, it is June and we are still harvesting. Today it is fantastic that the Riesling has been picked. During vintage Simon decided it would be the year we made a Noble Riesling so the nets went back on.

We last did this in 2007. So then we waited and waited. The weather was fine and the infection slowly developed and then it rained and rained. So we were pleased that the sun reappeared this week and Jeremy and Simon decided to pick today.

Nick with the mechanical harvester

However I had also booked a spot at the olive press for our first pick of olives. It has been a crazy day. Luckily Arabella was home on study leave and helped prepare morning tea and lunch for pickers of all varieties and crops.
This year we experimented with a mechanical olive harvester. It was an interesting day. Hand harvesting relies on lots of people to reach the required 300kg weight of olives to ensure to ensure a single grove batch press. It is also very pleasant gathered about the trees gently running your hands done the fruiting branches milking off the olives. However it is also a lot to ask of people. As we don’t sell the oil all we can offer is lunch, and a supply of delicious oil. So this year I borrowed a mechanical hand held machine from a friend and fellow grape/olive grower Jan Johns. The upshot was we managed to pick half the grove with 4 people. We also picked trees with a patchy crop that we would have left if we were hand picking. An interesting conundrum to consider is how I balance the argument in my head of mechanization versus hand picking. Tomorrow being Saturday we will pick traditionally by hand. The jury is out.

Winemakers helping out

Now with a number of people coming for lunch and the need for tasty winter fare I made a pot of Vegetable Soup last night. We have been going through a soup phase of late brought on by our harvesting of mushrooms. Alas the weather is too cold now for mushrooms but a good crop of pumpkins are stored in the shed in anticipation of my personal favourite Pumpkin Soup. However we did make pots and pots of Mushroom Soup, and using field mushrooms makes such a difference. Tomorrow Arabella will whip some savoury pinwheel scones to accompany the soup. Below is our Mushroom Soup recipe from the good old Edmonds cookbook.
Mushroom Soup
225g (8 ozs.) Mushrooms
½ cup Water
1 tablespoon Butter
1 Tablespoon Flour
1 cup Milk
Seasonings
Little Lemon Juice

Peel mushrooms, break into small pieces, and cook in the water until tender. Melt butter in a saucepan, add flour, and gradually stir in the milk. Cook until the mixture thickens, and cook a few minutes longer; mushrooms and liquor and seasonings. Just before serving,add lemon juice. A little cream improves the flavor.

Off to buy some shade cloth to make some new nets for the olive pick. Meg is home this afternoon and can help sew and bake treats for morning tea.