The long-lived Olive

 We planted an olive tree at our house in 2007.  It was a twig. It stayed a twig for about 15 years. Now it is a sapling. 

Here it is in 2020, 13 years old

And in 2023, it had a huge growth spurt!

Ours is just a baby still! Olives often live 300 years, and there are known trees that are 2000+ years old. 

I am fascinated by the olives that I see in Greece. Any place that is not otherwise used probably has olives on it. Up mountainsides, by roadsides, in the middle of nowhere, on an Athens street...literally anywhere it is possible to get to, there is probably an olive tree. And there are some REALLY old ones, judging by the size of the trunks.

Paralia Velikas, olive with a later wall built around the trunk.

You can see the small olives on the branch

A much-pruned olive trunk with newer branches.

Look at the trunk-width of the trees in this grove.

This is hard to see, but these are trees growing sideways because they are planted on such a steep slope.

Another view of the sideways trees.

I was taking a photo of the tower on the top, but you can see the olives planted everywhere possible on this barren land.

Another big trunk with some thinner branches.

How old is THIS one?

And another

And another. I can't get enough of them.

This one was at the beach, and not particularly well-tended.

Olives are native to Asia Minor, so Greece and Turkey. The olive was first cultivated 8000-10000 years ago in the area. They are one of the earliest cultivated trees. They were used commercially for their oil as a fuel, and the tasty olives came later.

I also adore the fig tree. A ripe fig picked fresh off a tree is one of the sweetest most wonderful foods in the world. I so admire their tenacity. The olives are cultivated, carefully, painstakingly, but the fig just grows any old place. They are also a really early cultivated plant (maybe the first!), and also come from this region.  I took some pictures of figs that weren't "cultivated" but that just planted themselves and then went along their merry way.

Growing in a wall in Monemvasia

Huge gree growing in a tiny neglected bit of dust in Monemvasia, right by the sea.

Another one growing out of rock

We planted a fig tree in our yard the same year as we planted the olive. The fig took off right away and has been bearing fruit for more than a decade.

And here is our tree, circa 2023.

And then there is the grape...grapes are planted for shade and fruit and wine and even the leaves, which are used for domades (stuffed grape leaves). Everyone has olive trees, citrus trees, and grape vines. I love eating outside (even before Covid) and in Greece the shade is very likely from carefully cultivated grapevines. Here is the avli I am sitting under as I type this:

If you look carefully, you might see the grapes hanging down. They won't be ripe for awhile.

And... here is ours. We can't grow the same kind of grapes, but we planted a native Florida grape.

circa 2020

Here it is in 2025, looking up. We have since pruned them back significantly.

You probably have noticed the pattern...we love the culture and the aesthetic, and we have tried to recreate Greek domestic life in our own yard. I haven't even talked about the citrus, but we have those, too....