Olive Trees

Olives are evergreen trees that will add a Mediterranean touch to your garden. My beautiful olive tree is loaded with olives in this moment, its many beneficial properties are well known all over the world. Olives are low maintenance and easy to grow so give it a try as they are an unique evergreen fruit trees!

Here in South Australia olive trees will start growing on your property without you even planting them because they’ve become feral.

The only problem I have is getting quality olives. Wild ones are tiny with a rather unpleasant flavour. I’d love to grow the jumbo Sicilian olives, kalamata or other pleasant varieties, but they need to be purchased. Also, how hard is it to grow the olive fruit to a good size and quality? I haven’t found any info online.

Olive growing is one of Tunisia's main agricultural activities. Tunisia's olive resources are estimated at over 65 million olive trees, grown on 1 680 000 ha, of which 75 000 ha are for certified organic crops!

Tim Kivi wrote:Here in South Australia olive trees will start growing on your property without you even planting them because they’ve become feral.

The only problem I have is getting quality olives. Wild ones are tiny with a rather unpleasant flavour. I’d love to grow the jumbo Sicilian olives, kalamata or other pleasant varieties, but they need to be purchased. Also, how hard is it to grow the olive fruit to a good size and quality? I haven’t found any info online.

Ola! Growing olive trees is so easy!
They only need some water in the early years. And after that, you just need to prune so you don't grow too big.


The Care and Feeding of Olive Trees
https://www.olivetreegrowers.com/blog.php?view=detail&id=19

Tim Kivi wrote:Here in South Australia olive trees will start growing on your property without you even planting them because they’ve become feral.

The only problem I have is getting quality olives. Wild ones are tiny with a rather unpleasant flavour.

What curing process are you using? Or are you tasting them straight from the tree?

When I lived in Arizona I planted the Spanish Arbequina and Tuscan varieties of Olive.  I can't grow them anymore.  Personally, they are one of my favorite trees to look at and I love brined style olives.  It's pretty cool knowing that they can live 1000+ years under the right conditions.

I give a thumbs up to the olive tree.  I'm also a fan of some of the Acacia nitrogen fixers.  Both do well in a very harsh environment.

Ellendra Nauriel wrote: What curing process are you using? Or are you tasting them straight from the tree?

I’ve tried a few different curing methods except for lye and the olives still taste basically the same. My local supermarket has a gourmet olive section and their “wild harvested New Zealand olives” taste and look the same as the feral Australian ones I cured. They’re small and bitter with a weird taste.

If I had enough space for an olive press I could make limitless free olive oil though. They’ve been tested for oil quality and some trees produce decent oil. You don’t even need your own tree here, many parks have feral trees growing in them with millions of olives that only the ducks eat because ducks absolutely love fresh olives. The leftover pulp could be used as organic waste.

Olive trees are a weed in South Australia. They grow and thrive anywhere and everywhere here and the government poisons them but still they keep spreading.

If feral trees are a problem, maybe you could turn it to your advantage by grafting some desirable varieties onto those abundant rootstocks.

Grafting seems an excellent idea. The roots of feral olives are so strong that they're near impossible to pull out even when the tree's only 2' high.