Olives in Liverpool?

[allaboutliverpool]

Has anyone grown an olive that has fruited?

My tree is covered in blossom for the first time. It is in a sheltered position on the Mersey Riviera where the minimum temperature this winter was -1C on one day only. That is not an uncommon temperature in the Mediterranean where the olive flourishes.



I wonder if it is a result of last years warmth, or the lack of cold in the winter. I know that they are self fertile so if we have another warm summer I may be in luck.

http://www.allaboutliverpool.com/allaboutallotments1_homepage.html

[allaboutliverpool]

[philandjan]

Our two year old tree produced 8 olives last year!

Oh, the benefits of living in Sunny Sultry Sheffield!

[David R]

i think the summer length, heat and light intensity has a lot to do with it. i think ours are not generally that hot for extended periods to fully ripen the olives......

[saddad]

The man on the manor gardens slot on youtube had grown his own olives they said...
:-\

[David R]

might be something to do with microclimates????? :-\

they are becoming more common though, ive noticed a few on my drive to work that were out all winter and must have been frosted a few times and they shrugged it off.

[Marymary]

There's a good article about olives in this month's Kitchen Garden.

[Bambi.1]

Awwww that sounds promising  ;D

I have one in a large pot and the other in the ground and was hoping that they would eventually fruit,thanks for giving me hope  ;D

[daxzen]

my daughter bought me an olive in a large pot about 6 years ago

it used to go in the conervatory during the winter

one year i forgot and it was left outside and suffered no harm

it is now in the soil adjacent to a south facing wall - micro-climate and no north wind

i estimate that it produced about 200 fruits last year and the birds loved them

the blossum is just starting again and it looks like we will double last  years

i'd like to eat them does anyone know what to do?
 

[Biscombe]

I have quite a few olive trees here in Spain, we normally take them to the co-op, got 25 litres last year but this year wasnt a good harvest. Heres some ideas for you. One year I tried dry salting them but It's a real fiddle. Try this I found on the web....

Use unripe green olives, just before they turn black. Bash them with a bottle on a piece of concrete to remove the stones. (I would guess that putting them loosely into a calico bag would be a good idea) Cover with almost boiling water, salted to taste. Leave to cool. Then cover with rainwater and change this 4 times per day for 3 days. Press for a while (one morning) in a colander, then add a generous amount of dried oregano, chopped garlic and chopped chili to taste. Press again.
Taste from time to time until they are all gone. They will keep for a week perhaps, but not in the frig.
The same method can be used for ripe black olives, but don't try to remove the stones. Prick with a fork, or slit 4 times.

[weedin project]

I think around the Med they grow quite high up hillsides and can therefore be exposed to very low temperatures in winter, but thrive nonetheless.
Our 3 trees here in Waterlooville have not fruited for 2 years since we transplanted them, but the year before were prolific when kept outdoors in pots.  The olives we got were a bit scrawny and tasted awful, which was why we planted them out as we thought they would get more balanced water/feed in soil rather than in the pots.  Certainly they have survived any cold we've had down here, and some of our February nights have been bitter over the past couple of years.

Good luck.

[allaboutliverpool]

I was a total ignoramus, I naively thought that yoiu just plucked an olive off the tree and ate it!

I now learn that they taste bitter and that ludicrous amounts of treatment are needed to either make them palateable of to produce olive oil.

I have a plan, the next time I have a Bar-be-Que sitting in the shade of the olive tree, I shall serve Tesco finest olives and say that they were last years crop!

http://www.allaboutliverpool.com/allaboutallotments1_homepage

[Robert_Brenchley]

The technology involved in extracting the oil is very simple; you just crush the olives to a pulp and float off the product. Maybe we'll all be doing it one day, or at least our grandchildren will, since it's a slow-growing tree.