Intrinsically human/intensely purposeful

With the Olives to Oil Festival coming up I’ve been keeping an eye on three olive trees close to my house. My regular tree in the abandoned house block next to the carwash is laden this year (that’s it above) but the prize tree is one street over in the front yard of a share house which has plump, bright green olives three times the size. 

I’m building up my courage to knock on their door and ask if they A. want their olives? B. want to join in the harvest? 

Each year in May CERES runs its beloved Olives to Oil Festival. Starting in 2018 it kicked off when a handful of people harvested olives together in backyards, parks and nature strips across Melbourne. They collected about twenty buckets of olives weighing around two hundred kilos.

The festival steadily grew until 2023 when things really got out of hand – two thousand pickers and a bumper urban crop delivered twenty-six tons of olives to inundated drop-off points. 

This was just across six metro council areas – imagine the olives we could save if we did all thirty-two councils?

This year my mum wants to come along and I reckon we can coax at least one of our sons to climb the ladder to pick some of the higher fruit.

There’s something intrinsically human and intensely purposeful about picking olives with your family, friends and neighbours and then bringing them together to be pressed with everyone else’s. 

This year there are Olive to Oil drop-off points for residents in Brimbank, Darebin, Hobsons Bay, Maribyrnong, Merri-Bek and Whittlesea and for all south of the river folk The Corner Store in Oakleigh is taking olives from all comers.

After you’ve dropped your olives off they get trucked up to Sandra Brajevic’s Barfold Olives farm near Kyneton, where they’re pressed the next day.  

A few weeks later the oil, possibly the most eclectic in the world (it’s won multiple medals at the Adelaide Show), is returned for you to collect and cook with.

There are plenty of drop-off point tickets available apart from the CERES drop-off, though if you do want to drop olives at CERES just buy an Out-of-Area ticket or put yourself down on the waitlist. 

Here is some olive harvesting guidance from our O2O organiser, Merrin Layden; 

– For the best oil pick your olives on the day or as close to the drop-off day as possible – no more than two days earlier is a good rule.

– If you have a big tree spread a tarp or old sheet on the ground and shake the branches or use a garden rake or a special olive rake to pull the fruit down, then collect them up from the sheet at the end.

– Veteran olive picker, Lindsay Miles, takes a large hummus tub and straps the handle over her wrist and strips the olives with her free hand so they fall into the tub on the other.

– If you’re confident you can cut out branches that need to be pruned and strip the olives off them once they’re on the ground. 

Here are the drop-off points and dates…

People of Darebin and Merri-bek 
CERES Brunswick East, Sunday 4th May or Saturday 24th May

People of Brimbank, Hobsons Bay and Maribyrnong 
Newport Community Hub, Sunday 11th May 11am-3pm
or
Visy Cares Hub, Sunday 18th May 11am – 3pm

People of Whittlesea 
May Road Senior Citizen Centre Saturday, 17 May, 12pm – 4pm 

People South of the River (all are welcome)
The Corner Store Network Oakleigh, Saturday, 24 May, 11am – 1pm 

More info here or contact Merrin at olivestooil@ceres.org.au 

Have a great week

Chris

PS – Fair Food’s closed tomorrow for Easter Monday but if you want a Tuesday delivery just get your order in before 7pm tmo and we’ll do the rest!