Current Activity
Autumn 2008
The olive tree skirts sway in the breeze; the fruit rattling together as long shadows dance on the grass below.

With low rainfall and moderate temperatures, our summer has been ideal in encouraging the olive trees to bear abundant fruit. We're preparing the trees for autumn by hand-weeding and mulching under the canopies; shortening the low branches so it will be easier for harvesting the fruit and charging the batteries of our bird scarers (non-lethal!) in preparation for the arrival of many hungry birds with olives on their minds!

We'll soon prepare our Press room and equipment for commencement of processing (around 16 th May) for growers in the region. We've already received some bookings and they're all saying they have a good crop so it will be a busy winter.

We intend to commence hand-harvesting our own fruit in June, depending on the development of ripeness of the varieties.

In our Baker Grove (Italian varieties) the Pendolino trees have prolific fruit, Leccino and Frantoio are also promising good quantities. The fruit on the trees in Picual Paddock (Spanish variety) have been slower in developing but are showing good harvesting this year. Stephanie Grove has Italian Coratina and the Greek Koroneiki varieties which will be one of the early varieties to pick.

Last year, the prolific Leccino produced the best flavoured oil but the younger Picual, Coratina and Koroneiki produced very good fruit for such young trees. We blended our oils last year for reasons of volume and flavour.

This season is very exciting as we intend to produce varietal oils. We will pick varieties independently and process the fruit in varietal batches, storing it in separate containers. It will be exciting to taste each extra virgin olive oil and appreciate their individual characteristics.

Our young apprentice, Jack, has started at TAFE College and will soon   be helping us with propagation advice and will be a valuable team member when we're olive pressing.

Regional Focus The Promontory Bratauoloong, Braialauloong and Tatungaloong people are members of the Gunai/Kurna federation. Bratauoloong people visitied Wammum or Yirrik (Wilson's Promontory) for over 30,000 years. It is a sacred site.