Pretty Monkey

It’s been so long, I’ve almost forgotten how to write a blog post!

Fortunately, even with last year’s COVID-induced break, I haven’t forgotten how to pick olives, and Pretty Monkey is the tasty result.

[Incidentally, if you would like to read about our previous oils, you’ll find these posts here and here.]

Once again, we kept our label design in-house. So awesome to know this came from the brain and hands of a 9-year old.

This was a year of unusually large learnings.

Two of the principles I stick to are to: (1) handpick olives only (no rake method); and (2) pick only those olives that would otherwise go to waste. Following principle (2), three of this year’s twelve picking days were spent on public olive trees, however the yield for effort was far lower than when I picked from private trees. I owe this to the fact that trees in public spaces are often pruned more severely than those in people’s yards, leading to more ladder work and less efficient picking.

In addition, because I missed the early pressing times, I picked late in the season and faced issues that haven’t bothered me in previous years:

1. less fruit—many of the trees I have harvested from in the past had already dropped their fruit by the time I was ready to pick, leading me to drive farther afield and spend 25% of my picking time in public spaces;
   
2. olive rot—anthracnose is a fungal infection that impacts olive oil quality. In my case, it slowed my picking and forced me to accept lower yields, as I had to evaluate fruit quality and leave/discard affected olives during and after picking; and
   
3. wild weather—in spite of inclement weather throughout the two weeks, there were only two days that were too wet and windy for me. When I picked during rain, I was careful on the ladder—and I took care to dry the olives at home, however the residual damp contributed to the sad loss of kilos of rotten olives before my pressings.

Next year, I shall book my pressing days earlier in the season.

This year’s facts and figures:

• Olives picked = 295kg [including one 73.1kg (6.75hr) day!]
• Picking time = ~48.5 hours over 12 days [two pressings this year—11 and 18 June]
• Oil produced = 50.5L [cold-pressed at Jumanga]
• Varietals = picual, seedling, kalamata, manzanillo, verdale, nevadillo blanco
• Locations = Beechboro, Duncraig, Joondalup, Leederville, Pearsall, Sinagra, Yokine

Finally, my thanks to these wonderful people:

• Amanda, Anna & Andrew, Charlie, Darren & Alicia, John & Jean, Leandri, Meremie’s neighbours, Pauline, Peter & Penney, Tina [for your olives];
• Amanda, Alice & India, Anna, John, Meremie, Pauline [for contributing olive-picking time];
• Tom & Jutta at Jumanga [for pressing my olives and being kind about the cardboard boxes];
• Jonelle at Blue Butterfly Printing [for producing our wonderful labels]; and
• Inda Indahood [for the label art];
• John & Jean [for 2019’s gift of proper olive oil bottles and seals, which continued to give this year];
• our red-wine drinking friends who contributed bottles for the cause; and
• you, dear reader, for staying curious.

Until we meet again, may your olives be plentiful and rot free,
Hannah.