Today's harvest

[pepperhead212]

Here is the second Choy Sum plant harvested, along with 2 large leaves from the first plant. And a photo of the first plant, with 3 more stalks starting to blossom. And that huge Senposai plant, showing how large it has grown, since the first photo. I'll have to harvest some of those soon, since they are the CACA type - cut-and-come-again - what most of these greens I grow are.
That first harvested Choy Sum, with 3 buds starting up, along with many more leaves! 10-18 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

The second Choy Sum harvest, including 2 large leaves from the first plant. 10-18 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

That huge Senposai, largest of 4 - the one behind much smaller, due to shading. Trash can for size reference. 10-18 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[Meryl]

My olive harvest .
Tomorrow they will be picked up to be taken to the olive mill, where they will be turned into EVOO.

 

[taxlady]

My olive harvest .
Tomorrow they will be picked up to be taken to the olive mill, where they will be turned into EVOO.

Now I am curious. How much was all of that in kg? How much EVOO do you expect to get from that? Will you get it back in bottles or some other kind of container?

 

[blissful]

@Meryl, I'm envious, for a moment, then I considered why I didn't move to italy or southern california to grow olive trees and harvest them. Now I'm just in awe. I'm so excited for you. Wonderful!

 

[jazzerlord]

My olive harvest .
Tomorrow they will be picked up to be taken to the olive mill, where they will be turned into EVOO.

Oh, I love the scale! There are so many of them!

 

[Meryl]

Thank you everyone for your very kind comments. @taxlady , these are about 240/250 kgs, because each crate can hold about 20kgs.
The number of liters of oil we will get depends on the quality, it's usually about 12/13%, so we could get about 30 liters.
We have our own oil container which will be taken with the olives tomorrow afternoon, then later me and my son will go and collect our filled oil container. It looks like this one. I don't know what they're called in English.

 

[larry_stewart]

Im envious of your harvest! Were those all hand picked? or machine picked ( like one of those machines that shake the tree and the fruit drop)?

 

[taxlady]

Thank you everyone for your very kind comments. @taxlady , these are about 240/250 kgs, because each crate can hold about 20kgs.
The number of liters of oil we will get depends on the quality, it's usually about 12/13%, so we could get about 30 liters.
We have our own oil container which will be taken with the olives tomorrow afternoon, then later me and my son will go and collect our filled oil container. It looks like this one. I don't know what they're called in English.

That looks like a milk can, so I guess it's an oil can. Hmm, that's not what comes to mind when I think of an oil can. Someone else will hopefully know what it's called. It's starting to bug me.

 

[dragnlaw]

it translates to 50 lt stainless steel oil drum

 

[taxlady]

it translates to 50 lt stainless steel oil drum

Again, oil drum doesn't bring Meryl's container to mind. This is what comes to mind when I hear oil drum. More like the kind that my woodstove was made out of.

 

[Meryl]

Im envious of your harvest! Were those all hand picked? or machine picked ( like one of those machines that shake the tree and the fruit drop)?

They have been harvested with mechanical rakes. It's quicker that way. I don't know anyone who uses the tree shakers, maybe just in large industries.
When I used to harvest them with my husband we used manual rakes to pull the olives off the branches, falling onto the nets. It's the slowest way but the best way not to damage the olives. Obviously large plantations can't do it this way. Almost everyone uses the mechanical rakes nowadays.

 

[Meryl]

it translates to 50 lt stainless steel oil drum

Exactly @dragnlaw . We have two of these drums with capacity 50litres. In the past we've harvested more.
They sell different sizes. They all have a tap at the bottom to fill up empty glass bottles. I don't throw out finished ones from stores so I use those. I keep the drum in my cellar and I just fill up about 5 bottles at a time every now and then.

 

[Meryl]

Again, oil drum doesn't bring Meryl's container to mind. This is what comes to mind when I hear oil drum. More like the kind that my woodstove was made out of.

My wood burning stove is made out of cast iron, if that's the correct translation for "ghisa".
Looks like this one:

 

[dragnlaw]

While taxy has a point, in that many poeple in North America would probably think of a drum to hold car/industrial/raw/coal whatever you want, kind of oil. In actual fact a drum is usually used to describe a large quantity of any kind of liquid. Vat would be used to hold an even larger amount of liquid. There are many names out there. Barrel, bucket, tank...
But the Italian translation from the web site describing Meryl's container happens to be drum.

 

[taxlady]

I and my first husband rented a place in the country. We eventually figured out that it was a log cabin. Some previous owners had covered the logs with dry wall indoors and with something else on the outside. This is pretty much what our woodstove looked like, just less charming and with no handy flat part on top. We used the woodstove for heating the cabin, making toast, and keeping a large kettle of water hot in winter. We had an electric stove for cooking.

 

[dragnlaw]

Yup, many a cabin used an old oil drum for heat. I rather imagine my old farm house, more than 200 years old, originally might have used one similar. I think those were really more popular farther north though.
Love it taxy!

 

[Meryl]

Went to the olive press yesterday.
Came back with 40 litres of evoo.
I wanted to post a video of the machines in action but I get the message: "uploaded file doesn't have allowed extension" .

 

[taxlady]

Went to the olive press yesterday.
Came back with 40 litres of evoo.
I wanted to post a video of the machines in action but I get the message: "uploaded file doesn't have allowed extension" .

Can you upload it to YouTube? Then you could post it here from YouTube.

 

[Meryl]

Can you upload it to YouTube? Then you could post it here from YouTube.

I've never done that before, I haven't got a clue how to do it, but wouldn't that mean sharing with the whole world? I only want to show it privately on this forum, being a reserved person I've never been one for social media .

 

[caseydog]

I've never done that before, I haven't got a clue how to do it, but wouldn't that mean sharing with the whole world? I only want to show it privately on this forum, being a reserved person I've never been one for social media .

I'm not sure, but I believe you can choose who can see your YouTube videos. I'm not sure how that works, but maybe someone more internet savvy can chime in.

CD