From Winter Work to Summer Growth – Life on Our Olive Fields in Crete

Hi, I’m George, your Greek olive oil farmer from Crete. The last months were busy for us here in the village. Winter is not a quiet time for olive farmers, actually it is one of the most important periods of the year. Now, as we move into summer, I want to share with you what we have done, and what happens next before your olive oil is ready. During winter, we take care of the trees so they can give us the best olives later. We cleaned all our fields around Tourloti, removing wild plants, old branches and anything that takes energy away from the trees. Clean fields also help us to move easier during harvest later. We also pruned the olive trees, which is very important. We don’t cut randomly, we open the tree so sunlight and air can go inside. This helps the olives to grow better and keeps the tree healthy. Every tree is different, some need more, some need less. This is experience you learn only after many years working with the same land. This winter we were lucky, we had good rain here in eastern Crete. For olive trees this is everything, the rain fills the soil with water that the trees will use slowly during the dry summer months. Good rain in winter usually means better olives later. At this point there is not so much we can do or control. The trees start to wake up, flowers will come and then small olives. From now on it is more about patience. We walk through the fields, we observe, we check the trees. Farming is not only work, it is also about watching and understanding. Even if it looks calm, there are still things to do. We check if the trees need water. Normally olive trees are strong and don’t need much, but in very dry periods we help them a little. We also monitor the health of the trees and most important we watch out for our enemy number one, the olive fruit fly. The fruit fly can destroy the olives from inside, and if you don’t control it you can lose a big part of your harvest. For us as organic farmers this is even more challenging, because we don’t just spray chemicals. We use traps and natural methods and we check regularly. This is a big part of making real olive oil, to take care of the tree in the right way, not the easy way. When you buy olive oil directly from a farmer, you are not just buying a product, you are buying all this work, the winter pruning, the cleaning of the land, the waiting for the rain, the daily checking in summer and the fight against the fruit fly. All of this decides the quality inside your bottle. If everything goes well, harvest will start around late October or November. Until then we continue walking our fields. Nature will do its job, we just support it the best way we can. If you want to taste olive oil that comes directly from the farmer, not from a factory, you can explore our latest harvest at Sopato.