The moment of the year is here: harvest season on Crete! We, many other farmers and olive-lovers can finally start harvesting the olive orchards.
Crazy about the harvest season
Even though we keep an eye on our olive trees throughout the year, it is only a guess in what condition the olives are going to be. The quality and quantity of the harvest is therefore always a surprise. However, it is still one of our favourite times of the year!
Timing is key
Every year the last two weeks of November and the start of December are crucial to the harvest. During this time, we have the important and difficult job of finding the perfect time to take in the harvest. As you know, the dark olive is the ripest olive (and the most flavourful). For olive oil, however, it is no problem if a large part of the olives is still green, as long as it is ripe. We wrote about the process of harvesting olives before, and we can tell you it is not a walk in the park!
Come help (us) out
The olive harvesting season is not limited to farmers and people from Crete with their own trees. Tourists also enjoy going through the orchards as it is still over 10 degrees Celsius in Greece this time of year. These so-called ‘olive picking weeks’ are a great form of eco-tourism. It’s extremely interesting to be part of the process of creating olive oil, it’s truly a hypnotic phenomenon!
