Moon over Martinborough

Frantoio olives (click to enlarge)

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“They’re all still green,” Rick said.

We were standing in the middle of the olive grove on a cold morning in the middle of May. Nearly five hundred olive trees surrounded us, and there wasn’t a single ripe olive to be seen.

The frosts would be starting soon, but the grove simply wasn’t yet ready for harvesting. We didn’t know what to do.

Frost damage can completely destroy your crop, because it ruins the taste of your oil. We needed more time.

I looked around at all the green olives. “We have to delay the harvest. There’s no choice. We just have to hope the frost doesn’t get us.”

Checking the grove

In the following weeks, every chance we could Rick and I checked the olive grove. We were like two anxious parents waiting for baby’s first steps.

Any day now. Any day.

In the meantime, each morning seemed colder than the last. The frosts were getting closer.

It was almost June when I was on my way out to feed the chickens in the dark one morning when I saw it. In the glow of my flashlight, the grass was actually sparkling.

I quickly fed the chickens and then headed down to the grove. Were they okay? Had the frost destroyed them?

Harvest day morning light

I opened the gate and went inside, shining my flashlight into the trees. Then I breathed a sigh of relief.

The olives were fine. The frost was too light and too low to touch them.

And in fact, they were actually starting to ripen. Although the nights had been cold, the days had warmed up enough to move them along.

When I got back up to the house I said to Rick, “We can’t wait much longer. It’s almost time.”

We decided to harvest the second weekend in June – in the end only a week later than last year.

We called the neighbors and the city friends. The 2010 olive harvest was on.

The workers arrive

Every year, our city friends arrive on Friday evening, and they did again this year. Rick put a pork roast in the oven, and we all laughed and talked and ate a delicious late meal.

The next morning, as the light broke over the far hills, we rose and ate a quick breakfast. The early birds among us headed down to the olive grove right away.

Our good neighbor John had let us borrow his ute (AKA pickup truck), and once again Helen the Olive Angel of Olivo had generously let us borrow her harvest equipment.

As always, we’d be nowhere without our neighbors and friends.

Frantoio & Leccino, June 2010

Down in the grove, many of us were already hard at work by 8am. Then around 9am I noticed Rick casually strolling by with our friends Gavin and Lisa, on their way to the bottom paddock.

“Hey Rick,” I called out. “There are no olive trees in the bottom paddock.”

“I’m just going to show them the property,” Rick answered. “They’ve never seen it.”

Rick and I met Gavin and Lisa when we were living in Tokyo years ago. They’re living in Melbourne now, and they’d flown in the night before to help with the harvest.

Next to me our friend Steve was working hard using a hand rake to harvest olives off the branches. As Rick strolled on, Steve smiled, rolled his eyes, and said in his best British nobleman’s accent, “I see the Lord of the Manor doesn’t want to overexert himself.”

That morning, while the rest of us were working, Rick made the great sacrifice of giving Gavin and Lisa the most thorough tour of this property that anyone has ever received. I believe he pointed out each individual fence post one by one, and he may have even taken them to the far side of the hay shed to introduce them to the fascinating splendor of our compost heap.

Basket fungus

When Rick finally escorted our Melbourne guests back to the olive grove, Lisa was carrying one of New Zealand’s natural oddities on the end of a stick. It was a native ‘Basket fungus’ – a foul smelling geometric ball. Rick knows a particular spot down by the river where they grow. He dutifully made sure everyone had a chance to see the fungus.

By then the grove was full of the 16 people who’d gathered to help us out with the harvest. Orange crates full of olives were starting to pile up on the back of John’s ute.

Then, just as Rick was reaching out to lay his hand on his first olive of the day, our neighbor Aussie Bronywn saved him.

At that very moment, she waltzed into the olive grove carrying a morning tea that would have made even the most dedicated olive harvester throw down their rake in anticipation.

Morning tea

New Zealanders have not only carried on the British tradition of morning tea, but it seems to me they’ve added to it with their own ‘down-home’ touch. A good Kiwi morning tea is one of the many things about New Zealand that I love.

Aussie Bronwyn's scones

Aussie Bronwyn, it turns out, had been baking all morning. She opened up boxes and produced gorgeous scones with cream and jam, date scones with butter to die for, and delicious hazelnut biscuits (gluten free for me). Plus our friend Nate whipped out his fantastic, home made, gluten free granola bars.

We served everything off the back of John’s ute, right there in the middle of the olive grove. We had coffee, tea, and enough home baking for the entire village. The late morning sunlight was streaming through the trees, and everything felt just right.

Back to work

Soon we were back at it, and everyone was pitching in. Even the ‘Lord of the Manor’ picked an olive or two, I’m happy to say.

We were focusing on our Frantoio and Leccino trees, the ones we love the most because of the delicious peppery taste of their oil.

By then our friends Leelee and the Wolf from MAD Olive Oil had shown up with their petrol powered branch shaker. It makes olives fall down onto the nets, and it does the work of 10 people in about 5 minutes.

But every time the Wolf went to shake a branch, he discovered Gavin up in the tree.

The Wolf shaking the sun

“Come down from there!” the Wolf would yell. “I have to shake that branch!”

Only after some time were we able to coax Gavin back down. It seems that day he discovered he is happiest when up inside an olive tree.

What pleased me the most about the day was seeing all of these different people that Rick and I care for getting along so easily – Kiwi, American, Aussie, British, Argentinian, straight, gay, urban, rural, engineer and artist.

There was a friendly, good-natured energy throughout the entire olive grove. Everywhere I looked people actually seemed to be enjoying themselves.

After we’d eaten lunch and our energy had begun failing in the afternoon, our city friend Biscuit showed up with no less than 13 individually ordered coffees from the Village Café in Martinborough – lattes, flat whites, and mochas for everyone who wanted one.

If many hands make light work, then caffeinated hands make work even lighter.

By 4pm we were packing 32 crates of olives onto the back of John’s ute to take to ‘Pressing Engagements’ – the olive press here in Martinborough. We ended up with 54 bright green liters of absolutely delicious olive oil from about 150 of our ten-year-old trees.

Our Frantoio and Leccino olive oil blend was no longer at risk of frost.

Harvest feast

When we got home from the olive press, I reached into the fridge and took out the three massive lasagna trays I’d prepared the day before – one beef, one veggie, one gluten free, all of them heaped with ricotta, mozzarella and fresh basil. I quickly popped them into the oven, and dinner was on its way.

By the time we sat down, the table was nearly overflowing with food. Everybody had made or brought something special. Kumara cooked in garam masala. Fresh crusty breads. Potato, green bean and pesto salad. And for dessert we had vanilla ice cream topped with my Spectacularly Failed Quince Jam – which never set enough to actually be called ‘jam’ but which made a damn fine quince sauce in the end.

Harvest on John's ute

At one point our city friend Anne said, “Jared, the lasagna’s even better than last year,” and it was then I realized that we’ve actually been starting something special.

Last year I made lasagna for the post-harvest meal because it’s easy to put together ahead of time. But now that practical lasagna is beginning to take on a new meaning – its own kind of tradition.

Sure, there were other olives still on the trees (all of our Barnea) but it didn’t matter.

Sitting there, with all of our friends and neighbors around us, with the “traditional harvest lasagna” on everybody’s plates, I felt overcome (once again, as I often am out here in the country) with a deep and happy gratitude.

What have you harvested that you’re grateful for?

____________________

Podcast

Click the ‘play’ button below to listen to ‘Race to beat the frost’ online, or download the MP3 for this podcast and others over in the podcast library.

Photo gallery

See more images of our harvest in the ‘Olive Harvest 2010′ gallery over on Facebook.

Related posts

Read about the 2009 harvest: Olive harvest on a misty day

Read other stories about:

• the olive harvest
• our city friends
• our good neighbors
• gratitude

Related information

• Check out Olivo’s website.
• Check out MAD’s website.
• You can find ‘Pressing Engagements’ olive press at 40 Naples Street in Martinborough. Phone: 06 306 6346.

Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine

‘Race to beat the frost’ appeared in the Spring 2010 issue of Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine.

See other ‘Moon’ stories from Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine.

You can find the magazine in the cafes and shops all over the Wairarapa. Check out the magazine’s website.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 25th, 2010 at 9:17 am and is filed under Neighbors, New Zealand, Olives & olive oil, Podcasts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.