New Traditions
On the way to our tram stop I pass a mature olive tree, the house it belonged to and the people who once tended it are long gone. Left standing on the vacant block among upturned concrete pathways, the lone tree is heavy with a crop of glossy green fruit oblivious to its changed circumstances.
In the 1950’s people migrating to Melbourne from Italy, Greece, Türkiye, Malta, Lebanon & Syria filled front and backyards with trees from home; lemons, figs, persimmons, pomegranates, apricots, nectarines, almonds and olives. In the decades that followwed orchards and gardens overflowed onto nature strips. Families and friends gathered annually to pickle, dry, sauce, jam, press and then share.
By the 90’s the suburbs and the people began to change; a new generation unfamiliar with the trees found themselves custodians of a fruiting legacy without knowledge or tradition to make use of them. Urban farming, produce swaps and fruit collecting squads emerged helping spread tree knowledge and share some of the surplus, but a question remained – what could be done with the tonnes of olives that rotted on the ground each year?
At 3000 Acres’ first Olives to Oil harvest in 2018 the 200 kilograms of fruit collected from neighbourhood trees fitted comfortably into a couple of shopping trolleys. Just three years later the 6.6 tonnes collectively harvested by 700 community pickers needed a large flatbed truck to transport to Barfield Olives in Kyneton for pressing. The harvest, the most eclectic olive oil farmer Sandra Brajevic’s press would ever see, found its way into competition at the Royal Adelaide Show where it won a Silver Medal.
Olives tend to have alternating light and heavy seasons. 2022 was light and by the looks of the tree on my way to the tram stop a bumper season is upon us.
Olives to Oil returns to CERES this May 21st when people all around Melbourne will harvest urban olives to be turned into the most unique olive oil.
If you’d like to join in here’s how Olives to Oil works:
1. PICK YOUR OLIVES
Grab your friends, family and neighbours, get together to pick local olive trees. Pick no earlier than the 19th of May, to ensure freshness.
2. DROP OFF YOUR OLIVES
Drop off your olives on Sunday the 21st of May. We’ve got drop-off locations at:
CERES Brunswick
CERES Fair Food in Preston
Corner Store Network in Oakleigh
Hobsons Bay Festival of Food in Newport (4th of June drop off)
3. WE WEIGH YOUR OLIVES
Turn up at your designated time, donning your bags, buckets and boxes. We will weigh them to determine how much oil you will receive (roughly 10 kgs of olives = 1 litre of oil).
4. WE PRESS YOUR OLIVES
After the olive festival, we take your olives to our friends at Barfold Olives, who press them into a community oil for us all to share. This process takes 2-3 weeks.
5. YOU PICK UP YOUR OLIVE OIL
Once pressed, come back to where you dropped off your olives and pick up your designated oil. Bring your own bottle or you can purchase them on the day.
We’re also inviting everyone to join us at CERES in Brunswick East for the Olives to Oil Festival on the 21st of May with food (heroing olives of course), music, culture, face painting, pruning workshops and olive pressing.
Info here or contact olivestooil@ceres.org.au if you have questions
Have a great week,
Chris
