Olive Tree

The days are getting longer. The weather is getting warmer. My chickens are laying more eggs, and I am getting more anxious to get the garden in better shape for spring. Which of my trees and shrubs need attention, which ones don't?  I learned over the years that there's no one answer on when, how, or what.

I have an olive tree (Olea europaea L.) in the front yard that does not yield as much fruit as I want. We take those olives for the Fall Community Milling at the nearby il Fiorello Olive Farm, and last Fall, it only yielded half a pound of olives.

As I poured the last drop of delicious, grassy community-milled olive oil from my tiny little bottle, I thought about how I can prune my tree so I can get more oil out of it.

I found a good number of YouTube videos of people talking and demonstrating how to prune an olive tree, and this one from the Sonoma UC Cooperative Extension is a really good resource:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfHFr_3eYpM

The links below have more complete information about growing olive trees in the backyard.

http://homeorchard.ucanr.edu/Fruits_&_Nuts/Olive/

http://fruitsandnuts.ucdavis.edu/dsadditions/Olive_Fact_Sheet/ 

Now I'm ready to prune my olive tree and I look forward to a bigger bottle of olive oil in the Fall.

photo by Tina Saravia

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