They look like black cherries - the olives are ripe (and some are passed it). The Orchard up at the school has been left to its own devices, it was planted ages back by someone who is no longer at the school - they did as student excercise preserve some olives last year, but this year some other project has taken that slot - so there are I would guess 50 trees - many barely waist high and oliveless and shaped by the bitter wind (This IS Flinders). About 20 of them have anything from 10 to a hundred olives on them. Two or three have many more. I think Olive oil may be beyond me at this stage (unless done by hand-squeezing?) but I hope we'll get some olives brined and in Olive oil and vingegar and olive oil and lemon juice. Until you've eaten home made olives... you might think olives in a bottle were good. Yes, I adore olives. The school is about a km away, and so very convenient. I just wish I knew what the varieties were! (the pictures are of fruit on different trees).
And yes I am squeaking with excitement! I've been dying to do my own olives again for 20 years.
Not sure why, but this reminded me to mention -- are you identifying things now for the spring? Specifically, here in Japan, it's spring, and we're picking warabi (one dictionary insists that's bracken, but I thought it was fiddlehead ferns -- ferns, anyway). When I asked Mitsuko (my wife) how she knew where to pick, she said last summer/fall she looked around to find the adult plants, and remembered the places. You might need a local Yul Gibbons to tell you which plants to keep track of, but at least for some of them, it's worth thinking ahead. You're in your fall, which should be the right time to identify now for your spring?
ReplyDeleteEuell Gibbons. Yul was Mr. Brynner, who will always be the King of Siam to me.
ReplyDeleteGood idea about spotting spring greens now. The plant that are best eaten small don't have too many distinguishing characteristics at the eating stage. But it might be best to rely on the garden for a couple of turns of the seasons, to really become confident about the flora of a whole new place. Hope you can find vegetable forager guides who have a broader outlook than the flathead-eating fishermen.
Thanks, I thought Yul looked wrong, but I couldn't remember the right spelling.
ReplyDeleteI've joined the Australian bushfood forum - nice forum, but no substitute for a person pointing. The only "I need to spot" I know of so far is wild garlic. Warringal grows here, and so does saltbush (and I am usng the latter, and just need to get a bit more confident with ID on the former). This is quite mediterranian in climate so I think less die-back?
ReplyDeleteHeh AbigalM the fisherman (actually a diver) is quite a fount of biological knowledge. He just has quite narrow fish tastes. Shrug. More for us.
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