September was mainly about nuts. I picked them one by one, off the ground and trees. It was a slow process but not unpleasant as the ground around the trees was mainly clear. As Cláudia A. mentioned on Facebook, picking nuts is a form of meditation. I may try using nets next year. These are a extra work to move around and can get damaged especially on your own.

I managed to collect 130 kg of almonds this year. Many of the self seeded almond trees have begun producing. I sold about a third and will be using the rest. Definitely making some almond toffee and chopped almonds in breakfast cereal 🙂 . It’s a slow business cracking the almonds nut by nut with a small hand operated machine but far better than using a hammer.

Olives. My olive trees are resting this year. I managed to harvest about 13 kg. I dressed and pickled 3 kg. Could have done with double this amount of unblemished ones to preserve.

I had a go at trying to make olive oil. I started with about 9 kg of olives. I first mashed them. I found this step to be unnecessary and a waste of my energy.

I them blended them for 6 seconds with a bit of water. Two bursts of six seconds for each lot. You have to be careful as the seed (stones) can damage your blades.

An old T-shirt was used to strain the blend. The stones remained mainly whole.

I poured the stain liquid into a plastic bottle to settle. I the squeezed the residue and poured the stained liquid into another bottle.

After 3 weeks I can see about 1 cm of clear olive oil in the 5 litre bottle which is about 0.16 litres. In conclusion the juice is definitely not worth the squeeze and I won’t be doing this again without a press and better filtration.

I harvested all the sweet corn. Pleased with the result considering there were less than a dozen plants. I have collected some seed for next year.

Had some pomegranates. The variety ‘Asyria’ seems to give better pomegranates. These have a yellowish outer skin and the seeds are pink but still sweet. Pomegranates like the olives, carobs and almonds are drought resistant trees and do well here with minimal irrigation.

Had some apples! I have two varieties one is yellowish mild, sweet and non acidic. These here are okay. Their skin has unpleasant flavour – mildly like kerosene (paraffin). I have stewed two kg for winter. It tastes like baby food 🙂 .

Despite a lot of fruit drop, I was surprised that I still got a decent amount of persimmon. They are a delicious fruit. I regret my father did not have a chace to see and try them. I have been getting a stream of about 4 fruit a day for over a month. Going to plant some seeds. Apparently they grow true amd take about 5 years before you get a fruiting tree.

That’s all for now. The olives grow slowly. I have some to sell for €3 a plant. If you know someone please put them in touch. dev1@bright-work.co.uk