This is me picking our olives and then the result of my labours. I didn't post these pictures last week because I was annoyed. I've got over my annoyance now so I figure I'll post the images... As people who have read this blog in the past know I was really worried about the olive crop this year ripening too fast. Well it did and after two trees giving such a mingy yield of truly horrible quality olives I packed it in and decided that it wasn't worth continuing.
In fact closer examination shows that it was all my fault. For some reason this year the olive flies were particularly happy and they laid eggs in pretty much all of my olives. Olives infested with grubs "ripen" faster because the grub exposes the olive to the air. The result is you get olives that are apparently ripe in September/October but are actually nasty insect infested rubbish. I have had olive flies before but never to this extent so I never bothered to spray my trees, I will not make that mistake again as I can very clearly see the results of spraying: one of my neighbours who did spray his trees is just now beginning his harvest and he has some beautiful olives.
Blog Home : November 2006 : Permalink
