The Honey Bee

Not essential for olive pollination, but can't hurt right?

By the way, the olives are blooming here in Northern California

The great drought of 2014

They keep telling me we're in a drought.  I wish they'd tell the tractor.

Pruning Olive Trees

It's well into Spring -at least weather wise- here in California which means pruning.  A lot of pruning, I see branches in my sleep a lot of pruning.  Here are some tips;

• Sap rises, use this to encourage growth in desired directions
• Go fast, you'll see many options so just pick one and prune.
• The 4 D's; Dead, Diseased, Deformed, Dying
• Maintain the shape of the tree you want - don't let it get out of control
• Heavy duty tree tape - you'll use a lot in a young grove 
• Keep a flat file handy for your cutting tools, you'll use it at least daily
• Keep your tools sterile, I use clorox bleach wipes.  Fast, easy, and effective.

Snapped branch from snow.  Cut.

Farm Sounds; Frogs in the Evening

The kids and I were burning some brush the other evening and thought you might enjoy the crackling of the fire and the frogs enjoying the recent rains.

Recovering from Freeze Damage

It's springtime!  The trees that were damaged are pushing new growth where they had lost all their leaves due to Decembers record lows.

Consistency

All my little soldiers lined up.

Over time a system develops while bottling and packing Green valley Olive Oil resulting in, I hope, a consistent positive experience from the retailer to the consumer using our oil.  It starts with keeping a clean oil free can during bottling, then pour spouts attached all oriented in the same direction. The label is applied so that the front artwork will be visible for a right handed pour and then put in the case with the oblong caps all pointed the same direction.

Now if you're left handed let me know and I'll happily re-orient the pour spout when you order off our page.

Drawing an Olive Oil Sample

Well, here's our super scientific method of drawing a sample.

Just look at this beautiful 2013 oil.