Olives and grapes.

Before we came here,  olives were just something that we bought in a tin,  ate occasionally and  put on pizzas.  I don't remember thinking much about them, but now we have our own trees which we  water every alternate Sunday (our day for the acequia water)   pick, brine and bottle  the black olives from November to January depending on the tree and variety and also prune for winter firewood,  now we are much more aware of them.

I don't think I ever realised that an olive tree had flowers.  That may seem a silly thing to say as how else do you get fruit?  And is an olive a fruit?  I suppose so but not edible till brined and then definitely not a sweet fruit. 

The trees now are getting ready to bloom,  lots of tiny tiny buds,  the flowers themselves are little white star shapes and will be out soon.


Also getting ready are the grapevines.  Lots of miniature bunches of grapes - hopefully they will do well enough for us to make some wine this October as last years crop dried up in the extremely hot heat of August - yes, hot even for Southern Spain - and the year before just didn't produce enough.  That year I think we made 40 litres which may sound a lot,  but when we first started to make wine a neighbour said we should aim for 500 litres!  What!  Was that a gasp from someone?  Think of it as a litre a day between 2 of us,  which isn't a lot,  plus visitors,  Christmas time,  fiestas - of which there are a lot - and it becomes clear that 500 is about right.

Fingers crossed that this years harvest will be exceptional to make up for the past few.