Olive Harvest

Olive harvest can be very quick! When the olives are ready and all goes to plan, we can have the entire grove harvested and the olives pressed for oil in the same day.

We are often asked how to harvest olives? It’s easy and there are many options.

• Pick the fruit by hand.
• Use a wide toothed rake to rake the fruit from the branches. It then falls onto some shade cloth underneath the tree and can be collected in baskets from there.
• Use an electric or battery powered rake to rake the fruit from the branches.
• Or harvest with a tree shaker (pictured below) to shake the tree trunk, the fruit falls into the frilled neck and into the baskets on the harvester.

We use a combination of hand picking for Kalamata and shaking the trees with a harvester. It’s a long day, but very quick compared to some growers!