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<pre>I recently joined this site & have enjoyed reading everyone's postings. I am
little league here, with just 2 trees in my backyard, and another 3 small
survivors of propagation now in a pot. I live in Christchurch, South Island, NZ,
& watch closely with keen interest at the new & fast growing 'olive industry'
here in New Zealand. My love of olives goes back as far as I can remember- as a
young child I couldn't get enough Greek black olives to eat. Having European
parents, I had a head start on my kiwi peers in the delights of eating deli
foods. My favourite - black olives sliced away from the pit & spread inside my
sandwiches - I had never heard of tapenade years ago,or knew that green and
black olives are from the same tree...how embarrassing ! About 9 years ago I
was inspired by an article about an olive grove here in New Zealand, and began
dreaming of growing olive trees ever since. To finance such a dream has not been
possible, so I started with my backyard and just enjoy what I can.
My 2 trees are now 7 years old - one is Manzanillo, growing real fast, and this
year will be 3rd 'harvest' due in June. First harvest yielded 750gms, last year
350gms, and this year I'm hoping for an improvement. The second is a Sevillano.
Last year it produced 6 single olives. This year again it has failed fruit set,
and there is another 6 or so olives! It was fully laden with flowers at about
1-2 weeks later than the Manzanillo which is planted about 3 metres away. I was
so hopeful of Sevillano olives to pickle, and when I checked after flowering
time the tree is bare again except for a few. Of course I realise these trees
are still young and hopeful of better results from year 10, but will I need a
3rd variety as a pollinator for the Sevillano?
A friend from a local olive grove passed by, and commented my manzanillo has
"Shot berries", but he has not seen this before on other olive trees. Does
anyone know of this, how or why? WHat I have all over the tree are clusters of
olive fruits, very, very small, amongst which one or two large olive fruits are
growing bigger normally. The very small berries will eventually fall off.
Picking will be probably be in June.
In the meantime I read with interest all the 'goings on' contributed by the list
members, and am enlightend daily. Thank you....... Chris (Christina
Miller)
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