Olives
The Olive (Olea europaea) is a species of small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean region, from Syria and the maritime parts of Asia Minor. Its use as a major agricultural product in preclassical Greece led to its wider distribution thoughout the western Mediterranean. Olive trees shows a marked preference for calcareous soils, flourishing best on limestone slopes and crags, and coastal climate conditions

.The Wild Olive is a small, straggly tree or shrub to 8-15 m tall with thorny branches. The leaves are opposite, oblong pointed, 4-10 cm long and 1-3 cm broad, dark greyish-green above and pale with whitish scales below. The fruit is a small drupe 1-2 cm long, thinner-fleshed and smaller in wild plants than in orchard cultivars.

--- Wikipedia

California Olives

In the 1700s Franciscan monks brought the olive to Mexico and then north to California by way of the missions. The first cuttings were planted in 1769 at the San Diego Mission. However, it was not until the late 1800s that commercial cultivation began in warm, sunny valleys of Central and Northern California.

California has four main varieties — Mission, originally cultivated by the Franciscan missions; Manzanillo, which represents most of the acreage; Sevillano and Ascolano, which produce the larger sizes. Approximately 70-80 percent of ripe olives consumed in the United States come from California. Over 90 percent of the California crop is processed as black ripe olives. The remaining olives are processed into various specialty styles or crushed for olive oil.

Unknown to many, Olives are actually fruits and grow on trees. They are harvested in the fall as the fruits mature. When olives are picked from the tree they are green and very bitter tasting. They must go through a curing process before they can be eaten. The California Black Ripe Olive is processed in a curing solution that leaches the bitterness out, giving the olive its firm texture and smooth, mellow taste. The olives then go through several cold water rinses to remove all traces of the curing solution. During these rinses, a flow of air bubbling through the olives produces their natural, rich dark color.

The mild winters and hot dry summers of California's great valley are reminiscent of the olive's native Mediterranean home. The olive tree tends to be alternate bearing, producing a large crop one year with a smaller crop the next. Modern cultivation practices of pruning and thinning have helped to minimize this characteristic to some extent. The trees bloom in May with delicate, cream-colored flowers. By mid-September, the harvest begins. Olives destined for the canneries are picked when they are still green, but beginning to show a little color. Most olive orchards are picked by hand except for a few larger acreages, which are mechanically harvested by machines that shake the trees and catch falling olives in a frame. Dumped into bins, the olives are taken to the cannery where they are sorted, graded and put in large tanks filled with storage solution.

-Courtesy of California Ripe Olives