Upcoming Olive Harvest

Max here... remember this post from back in March?

http://www.firststepsfarm.com/blog/olives-chickens-and-a-new-farming-adventure

I don't think we've posted anything about the orchard since that original post, but we still have it, and have been working up there for the last 8 months.  And now, we are exactly one week away from our first harvest!!  We've been waiting for this moment for a long time!

This is a very different kind of farming than what we are used to, and the next 1-2 months are going to be extremely busy harvesting, hauling, milling, bottling labeling, and then pruning the whole orchard shortly after that!  I've never had to deal with more than a truckload of produce at once, now we are going to be hauling tons (literally!) of olives from the orchard to the mill.

A combination of good luck and diligent care has won us a large crop this year, and almost all our 825 trees are loaded with olives.  They are varying sizes, and a small number of trees are ripe now, with the majority ripening around Thanksgiving and early December.  Our harvest next Sunday will harvest only the small portion that is ripe now, and we will be able to get a feel for the whole process, and press a small batch of oil before harvesting starts in earnest in about a month.

Needless to say, the concept of having gallons and gallons of prime cold-pressed, local extra virgin olive oil is exhilarating!  But I guess we shouldn't count our bottles before their pressed...  stay tuned, the anticipation is building!