Can't find Castelvetrano? A 7-row swap table for it, Kalamata, Cerignola and Niçoise, matched by taste and texture, plus what to use with no olives at all.
Read the story →Set up a potted olive tree on day one: a pot with drainage holes, a gritty soil mix and full sun. Plus repotting, and…
November 12, 2026A simple olive tree watering schedule: weekly when newly planted, every few weeks once established, in a pot when the top 2 inches dry, plus the tools.
November 9, 2026Olive tree zone guide: olives grow outdoors in USDA zones 8 to 11. What each zone means, microclimates, pots for cold areas and where the US grows olives.
November 6, 2026Straight off the tree, an olive is inedible — bitter enough to make you wince. Curing is how we fix that, and you can do it at home…
Kalamata are ripened and brine-cured. Tinned black olives are picked green and oxidised. Why one tastes of wine and the other of almost nothing.
An olive that is delicious from the jar can wreck a dish, because heat does three things to it: it drives out salt, it softens the flesh, and…
In a village in Crete stands an olive tree up to 4,000 years old — still making olives. A timeline of everything it has outlived, and the one…
Andria's big, sweet table olive, Sant'Agostino is a Puglian speciality — meaty and delicate, and famously reluctant to grow anywhere…
The biggest table olive in the world, Bella di Cerignola is a giant green Puglian beauty — mild, meaty and…
The heel of Italy's own olive, Ogliarola Salentina gives the golden-green oil of Salento — herbal, almondy, and one of…
The queen of Irpinia's hills, Ravece gives an unmistakable oil that smells of green tomato — bitter, spicy and built…
A Calabrian rarity grown on barely a hundred square kilometres of Ionian coast, Grossa di Gerace gives a fruity, almond-and-artichoke…
Calabria's own Ottobratica gives a fragrant, remarkably stable oil — high in polyphenols, picked in October, and the backbone of…
Its beauty, its origins, its history: the varieties, the fields, the pictures.
“What does lavender have to do with olives? Well, I’m glad you asked. I just love both, and to me they’re the perfect match.”
