Arriving back from my holiday I realised it was well and truly time to pick our olives, before the bower birds consumed them. There has been a flock of bower birds hanging around the garden and they have successfully demolished all our cauliflower plants, each one stripped to a stalk.
The olive tree has produced magnificently this year and we have a bumper crop.
I have separated them for the purposes of pickling,
You need to slit each olive three times to release the bitterness from the olives when soaking in the brine. This was a time consuming job but it is certainly worth the effort.
They look a little odd after one day soaking but after the ten days the slits close up again and they look like normal olives again. I will post the result after they have finished soaking and are ready to bottle.
Gippsland Granny 