When Are Olives Harvested?

In the Northern Hemisphere, olives are harvested from around October through December or January, with the exact window depending on where the grove sits, the variety, and whether the fruit is being picked green or left to ripen black. In the Mediterranean heartland the season traditionally opens in autumn and runs into early winter, often finishing before Christmas. In the Southern Hemisphere everything simply flips: growers in places like Australia, Chile and South Africa harvest from around April to June. There is no single global date, but there is a reliable pattern, and once you understand it the whole calendar makes sense.

The autumn-to-winter harvest window

Olives ripen slowly through late summer and into autumn. As the weather cools, the fruit shifts from hard and grass-green through straw and rosy purple to a deep, oily black. Harvest is timed to catch the fruit at the right point on that journey, and for most of the Mediterranean that lands squarely in the cooler months.

Broadly speaking, the season runs from roughly late September or October until December, sometimes stretching into January in warmer or later-ripening regions. Growers who want a fresh, peppery, green-tasting olive oil pick earlier, when the fruit is still turning. Those chasing higher yield and a rounder, milder oil wait longer, letting more fruit go black and fill with oil. Table olives destined for the jar are picked on their own schedule, which we come to below.

Weather is the wild card every year. A hot, dry autumn can push ripening forward; a cool, wet one can hold it back by a fortnight or more. This is why experienced growers talk about “reading” the grove rather than marking a fixed date on the calendar. Most modern producers also check the fruit in a lab or by eye using the ripening scale (the maturity or “veraison” index) to decide the precise week to start.

Green versus black: it is the same fruit, picked at different times

One of the most common misunderstandings about olives is that green and black olives are different varieties. They are not. A green olive is simply an unripe olive, and a black olive is the same fruit left on the tree to ripen fully. The colour is a clock, not a species. (You can read more on this in our olive encyclopedia.)

That single fact explains most of the harvest calendar. Green table olives are gathered earlier in the window, while the flesh is firm and the fruit holds its shape through curing. Leave those same olives another month or two and they soften, darken and grow oilier, which is exactly what you want for a black table olive or for milling into oil. Some producers also pick “turning” olives in between, at the pink-to-purple stage, for a middle-of-the-road flavour and colour.

Here is roughly how the timing lines up in a typical Northern Hemisphere season. Treat these as general ranges, not fixed dates, since local climate shifts them around:

Purpose	Fruit colour at picking	Typical window (N. Hemisphere)	What you get
Green table olives	Green, firm	Roughly Sept–Oct	Crisp, bright, holds its shape when cured
Early-harvest olive oil	Green to turning	Roughly Oct–Nov	Peppery, grassy, lower yield, high polyphenols
Turning / mixed table olives	Pink to purple	Roughly Oct–Nov	Rounder flavour, softer bite
Black table olives	Fully black, soft	Roughly Nov–Dec	Rich, mellow, tender
Late-harvest olive oil	Mostly black	Roughly Nov–Jan	Milder, sweeter, higher yield

Hemisphere flips the whole calendar

Because olive trees follow the seasons wherever they grow, the harvest in the Southern Hemisphere sits opposite the northern one. When Spanish and Italian growers are wrapping up before winter, Australian and Chilean growers are only a few months from their own picking, which falls in their autumn — roughly April to June. This is genuinely useful for oil lovers, because it means “new season” extra virgin olive oil is available at two different points in the year depending on where it was pressed. A bottle from the Southern Hemisphere pressed in May is as fresh as a northern bottle pressed the previous November.

Region	Hemisphere	Typical harvest months
Spain, Italy, Greece	Northern	October – December (into January)
Portugal, Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia	Northern	October – December
California	Northern	October – December
Australia	Southern	April – June
Chile, Argentina	Southern	April – June
South Africa	Southern	April – July

How the olives come off the tree matters too. Delicate table olives are often picked by hand or with small hand rakes so the fruit does not bruise, while oil olives can be harvested faster with mechanical shakers or over-the-row harvesters, since a few knocks do not hurt fruit that is heading straight to the mill. Whatever the method, speed matters once picking starts: olives begin to deteriorate within hours, so good producers press or cure quickly. If you want to turn a harvest into something edible at home, our guide to curing olives walks through it step by step.

When are olives harvested — common questions

What month are olives picked?
In the Northern Hemisphere, mostly October to December, occasionally into January. In the Southern Hemisphere it is roughly April to June. Green olives are picked earlier in that window and black olives later.

Are green and black olives harvested at different times?
Yes, but they are the same fruit. Green olives are picked while unripe and firm, earlier in the season; black olives are the same olives left on the tree to ripen fully, so they come off later.

When is olive oil harvested?
Alongside table olives, in the same autumn-to-winter window up north. Early-harvest oils are pressed from greener fruit around October–November for a peppery style; late-harvest oils use riper, blacker fruit into December and January for a milder taste.

Do olives ripen after they are picked?
Not usefully. Unlike some fruit, olives do not sweeten or ripen much off the tree, and they spoil quickly once harvested. That is why growers pick at the exact ripeness they want and process the fruit fast.