Flowering: After the tree is well pruned, new sprouts start to appear in April and continue to grow until June depending on the quality of the soil, and we call this flowering. Then the white flower clusters starts to blossom but only five flowers out of a hundred become olive fruits.

The stoning: In June, the fertilized flowers start what we call the stoning (the time when the fruit stone start to harden) and the fruit pulp called « drupe » becomes fleshy.

Ripening: The olive fruit already acid green, it starts to ripen:  the color of the olive fruit starts to change from delicate green to darker green then to violet in autumn and lastingly to black in winter.

The harvest: « the 25th of November, the oil is there in the fruit »: the further it ripens the richer in oil it becomes. Harvest time lies between November and February. Harvesting is made by hand for the low branches while the branches in the top of the tree are shaken to allow olives to fall on big covers or nets. This operation requires a good number of harvesters: each male or female harvester collects between 60 to 240 kilos of olives per day.

The olive tree produces between 15 to 50 kilos of olives per year considering that it gives olives every other year.

 

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