Olive Harvest at Telegraph Hill

The 14^th annual harvest of olives is underway at Telegraph Hill.

This year they are harvesting manzanillo and kalamata llives from their eight groves around Hawke’s Bay. The team expects to handle over 50 tonnes of fruit this year.  

The best time to harvest table olives is determined by the fruit colour. An olive tree will not colour all its fruit uniformly, the picking decision is made when the a third of the fruit is green, a third turning colour and a third black. This gives maximum yield of ripe fruit before the black olives get too ripe to use for eating.

Olives can either be picked by hand or machine. The purpose-built olive harvester is the fastest option, harvesting up to 400 trees per day harvested, compared to an average of six per person hand harvesting. The harvester shakes the tree and captures the fruit in an upside down umbrella. Watch how it works here.

Get some of this fresh fruit for yourself! Then use this recipe for your own home fermentation of olives. Olives need a fermentation step to extract the natural bitterness from the fruit, they can't be eaten fresh from a tree.

Purchase fresh olives online and enjoy!

For more information vist telegraphhill.co.nz