Monday, November 2, 2009

Olive Harvest

It's the olive harvesting season in Molfetta and all of the olive groves around town are filled with people beating, shaking or raking their trees to get the olives down. The fellow in this photo is beating the branches with a long pole. The olives fall down onto the large green nets which are used to carry them to a truck. After all the olives have been harvested, they are taken to a mill to be pressed for delicious extra virgin olive oil.

Last year I photographed the pressing process. Take a look here.

5 comments:

Bergson said...

A photo reportage very successful

Chuck Pefley said...

That's a very interesting technique. Also interesting that the olives are ground into a paste prior to pressing. How many pressings do you get from your olives? More than one, I suspect.

Donna j. Gehl said...

This is very interesting. Thank you for sharing.

valeria said...

Are those your olive trees? I love good olive oil!

Anonymous said...

Nice photo. I wondered how they brought the olives down. I love olive oil!