I have just finished hand-harvesting our olives and those of our friends - some 800 kilos in all were gathered up. It was four long days of satisfying exercise on sunny wintery days for four 60- and 70-year-olds. There were no motorized tree shakers to reduce our labours, and no help from the sons of our Spanish friends.

Lunch was cooked over a wood fire with an exchange of views about what has been lost in traditional ways and farming in the past ten years.  We were surrounded by abandoned olive, almond, and orange groves. Ten years ago we would have been surrounded by large family groups, with grandparents, parents and children enjoying and benefiting from the exercise, the sense of community and the health-giving qualities of the extra virgin, cold-pressed olive oil produced on the village or family olive mill and press. Most presses have now disappeared and those villagers that do still harvest olives have to travel to large factory mills up to 50 kilometres away where their olives are mixed with those of others. Luckily, our friends have invested in a small home mill and press so our own olives are producing olive oil as pure as you can get.

Our olive trees have been fertilized only with sheep manure and sprayed against insects and fungi with natural ecological sprays.  We don’t use chemical products as do most commercial olive farms.

Perhaps we spend a full day a week growing and processing our ecological products, but we don’t need to visit supermarkets and we spend less money. One thing not on our shopping list is the typical medications for the over-50s.

© Clodagh and Richard Handscombe
Holistic gardeners and authors living in Spain for 25 years. Details of their books etc will be found on
www.gardeninginspain.com. December 2010.