This week it’s:
The story of olives
We look at a fruit grown for both oil and eating
THE olive () is a crucial fruiting crop, and represents one of the oldest and most important of any farmed crop in human history. Olives have both evolved naturally and been bred, so that today there are many hundreds of cultivars. Around 40 years ago, olive trees started to make a significant mark in British gardens, for their look rather than their fruiting potential, and in the past decade or so this appeal has increased exponentially. Recently, I visited the Greek island of Zakynthos, where there are 2 million olive trees, and I was lucky enough to have a tour of an olive grove and factory where they process the fruits into oil. Let’s take a look at the olive, and some of its quirks!
