Bearing fruit

As I was weeding yesterday, I realized I'm getting behind on this blog, and you haven't seen the olive fruit yet. It's hard to believe, but the majority of the trees are bearing fruit. The trees were planted last May, so that makes them a year and 2 months old. I'm starting to have faith in the promised harvest next winter. Sometimes you can get so lost in the moment, the daily grind of caring for these trees, that it's hard to believe there will be a harvest and all this labor will be converted to liquid gold. (In our dreams!)

Though it's just a figure of speech, the oil does look like liquid gold, bursting with life and taste. We recently purchased a bottle of Arbosana oil from California Olive Ranch, the largest high density olive planting in the state to date. Our planting is primarily Arbosana, while about 20% of our trees are Koroneiki, originating in Greece, which has a very small milder tasting fruit. These trees pollinate the Arbosana, and we are still kicking around the idea of doing a small run of a blend, and a larger run of pure Arbosana.

While they filter the oil more than we will, it's encouraging to taste the delicate flavors and savor the rich intensity of the oil. There is something so alive about it, compared with off the shelf oils from Europe or even the more mellow golden oil made from California Mission olives.

It makes sense that the name Arbosana means something like: tree of life.