Sage Garden at EcoVillas Olive Harvest

Jason Trotter of Sage Garden EcoVillas giving us the basics
about growing and harvesting olives in Arizona

On Saturday September 9th, Jason Trotter of Sage Garden EcoVillas kindly opened his yard and home to hold a workshop on how to pick, cure, and finish olives. There was a great turn-out for the olive harvest, everyone young and old, curious to learn how to harvest these little gems.  Some had made the mistake (like me) of picking an olive fresh from a tree and taking a bite - DON'T!  It won't kill you, but your taste-buds will be very unhappy.  Olives fresh off the tree, green or black, are extremely bitter.

Olive tea was available to sample.  Made from the
olive tree leaves, it has a nice mellow flavor.

Tarps were laid out to catch the falling olives and attendees jumped right in on picking the olives using small plastic rakes attached to extension poles.  Even the youngest gave harvesting a try!

It was great to have such a family-friendly event.  These kids did a great job harvesting, learned where olives come from (not just from a jar), and had fun outdoors instead of being glued to a screen (computer, tv, phone, tablet).

It turns out that both black AND green olives come from the same tree.  The black ones are just riper than the green ones.  Accordingly, the green olives need to be cured longer than the ripe black ones in order to remove most of the bitterness. 

The black and green olives were separated into 2 different buckets for curing.  In the curing process you keep the olives submerged in water and check each day to see if they are ready for finishing.  After about a week you move on to the finishing process where the olives are soaked in a brine.  For details and recipes, check out Sage Garden's FB page, or attend the next workshop!

 There is another Olive Harvest Workshop on Saturday, Oct. 7th from 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.  Participants will be picking both green and black olives, preparing them for curing, and starting the curing process.  Sign up on FaceBook at 
EcoVilla's Olive Harvest Workshop

Olives: Finishing Recipe courtesy of Sage Garden Ecovillas

http://www.sagegardenecovillas.com/

This recipe covers just the finishing process.  Before finishing, the olives should be cured, to remove the bitter chemicals that naturally occur in them.

Materials:
 - Air-tight heat-tolerant containers (such as canning jars)
   - I always use at least one small-sized jar (4 or 8 oz) for tasting
 - Stock pot or sauce pan
 - Stirring spoon

Ingredients:
 - Cured olives
 - 1 gal water
 - 1 lb (or 1 1/2 cu) non-iodized salt (such as pickling salt, sea salt, or kosher salt)(or 1 1/2 cu)
 - 2 cu vinegar (I prefer malt vinegar), can substitute 1 1/3 cu lemon juice
 - Olive oil (optional)

Steps:
 - Place the cured olives in the containers.  Leave at least 1/2 inch of space at the top of the containers.
 - Start heating an amount of water equal to half the volume of olives.  If your olives fill a gallon jar, you'll need 2 quarts of water.
 - Add salt and vinegar (or lemon juice) using the proportions above.
 - Stir until the salt is dissolved
 - I continue heating the water until about the time when "steam" is visible.
 - Pour the hot finishing solution into the containers of olives.
 - Optionally, you can add a layer of olive oil on top.  Note that the olive oil will solidify when refrigerated and it will look like a layer of wax.  This is normal.
 - Close the containers and keep refrigerated.
 - After one week, I open a small container and taste the olives.  If they are too bitter, I cure them further:
   - Leave at room temperature for 1 - 2 weeks to cure further.
   - Empty and replace the finishing solution, re-seal, and refrigerate

For the Kalamata Style Recipe see Sage Garden FB page