Mission Olives

There is a little grove of olive trees up by the arbor which I believe  are Mission olives. I'm pretending they are anyway because I'm particularly fond of these trees, partly because I think they are beautiful, and partly because they are so interwoven with the history of California and of the missions. where they were developed.

Mission olives  was developed in California by the Franciscan priests who built a series of 21 Spanish missions the length of the state of California a days' travel apart. Their goal was to spread Christianity among the local Native Americans, and every person who went to school in California can probably still recite the names of many of the missions.The final one, San Francisco Solano, was built in the town of Sonoma in 1823. I have visited many of the California missions and find the buildings beautiful and their history fascinating. Many of them still have olive trees on their grounds.

The olive trees were fairly newly planted when we moved here, and didn't produce many healthy olives, but this year, even the ornamental olive bushes next to our driveway are producing olives! They start out green and progress through a rich burgundy color to black. They can be harvested anytime between October, when they are green and February when they are best pressed for oil. These are just about ready to be harvested. The problem is, neither OilMan or I h want to do it. They are only edible after they are cured and curing olives is a tricky business for the novice, especially novices who aren't even quite sure what kind of olives they are. Smaller varieties can be cured in salt, but some of the larger types must be cured in lye to get rid of the bitter taste. This is not something I fancy....

I thought the late afternoon sun on this particular branch of olives was pretty. They won't be so pretty when we are raking them off the ground, but it will probably be necessary if we don't find someone who would like to harvest them....