Olive Picking on the Island

by Island Reporter and Astral Traveller Anna Comino

'Well the olive-trees are talking to us' meaning they need a 'klathema' a pruning.
The typical Olive-picking day starts at 6am with a round to the animals to be fed and checked that they haven't escaped and are feeding on anyone else's trees.

Then a elliniko kafe (Greek coffee) and off to the fields at 8am. Laying out of the 'liopana' (Olive sheets on which the picked olives fall). A total area of 500sq metres is laid and then the serious branch pruning commences, before the Coupepe (battery operated long- arm shakers) are held up to each branch and the olives go flying. The lower branches are combed with a traditional olive brush (bit like a kiddies' sand rake). Once a tree is "mazevid" (collected) the olive-loaded liopana are tipped into a 'koskinistra' (a sorter which separates the branches and leaves) and the olives then roll into 50kg Brazilian coffee sacks.

And the whole process is repeated again until all olive trees bearing fruit are picked. We currently, after 2 weeks, have done about 200 of 500 trees.

I have been amiss not to mention the romance of the olive: the smells, the abundance of leaves, the impressionists colours of each unique tree spanning from grey, to green, to rose, to shiraz, to cabernet, to burgundy. Texas tea but god we still have 300 bloody trees to go.

Wishing you where all here (with an olive brush in hand)

Anna C., Agia Pelagia