The 2011 harvest was looking good a month out. The trees were heavy with fruit and we were expecting good yields. Then came a new menace to the grove - starlings! While we had heard that these feathered thieves could clean out whole crops in hours, we had never had a problem with them before. This year, they came - huge flocks, and for about three weeks until the olives were ready to pick, our days were dominated by frantic efforts to protect the crop. They ended up taking a significant amount of our beautiful frantoio - about three-quarters of the fruit in the end. The destruction seemed worse when we realised that the oil we did manage to harvest was good and the yields were very high. The only consolation was another Silver medal for the Leccino, the one variety we did get a good harvest from. We are holding our breath on the 2012 harvest. We cannot be sure if the lack of sunlight this summer will affect the olives and we await the return of the bandit birds!
River Grove lies
on the banks of the Ruamahanga River in the beautiful
Wairarapa. Situated in the area known as Landsdowne at
the northern end of Masterton, the grove takes up seven
hectares of our 19 hectare property – the balance being
used for grazing beef. Currently we have around 1700
trees, most of which were planted in 2000.
The majority of the trees are the Tuscan varieties
(which are best suited to the Wairarapa), the
wonderfully fruity Frantoio and the delicious, peppery
Leccino, but we also grow the exotically named
Manzanilla, Picholene, Pendolino, Chemlali, Moraiolo,
Minerva, Super and Picuado. The trees flower around
November and the fruit is usually ready for harvest by
June. Family members (and unwary visitors!) are called
on to help with the harvest which takes around three
weeks. Our olives are processed not far away at The
Olive Press in Masterton within hours of harvest and the
aromatic, luscious green/gold oil is brought home and
stored in stainless steel cans ready for bottling.
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