Myself, Matt and 2 year old Poppy arrived on the quinta in October. In November we started our first olive harvesting.
Andy prentending to be an olive tree
Andy would climb up the tree and prune the branches then throw them on to the nets below. The gang would then take the olives off the branches until we had a net full.
Matt, Helen and Poppy sorting the olives
The next stage was the winower (which Poppy calls the washing machine). Someone would tip the olives in the top, someone else turn the handle, then the olives would pour out into an old baby bath whilst the leaves and remaining twigs would be separated out.
Helen using the 'washing machine'
Then the olives were put into the hugist bucket until we were ready to take them to the mill for pressing. We changed the water daily.
Olives waiting to go the mill
The final stage was bottling the olives for eating in the coming year (the eating being my favourite part). We made up a brine solution of 100g of salt to 3 litres of water and then added herbs from the garden…oh and a few chillis!
Me bottling olives for eating
We bottled about 73 jars of olives in total and I am very happy eating them 
