Olive Harvest at Villa Lidia: Sweat, Nets, and Liquid Gold

From the Journal of Marleen

When we first picked olives back in 2022, we understood why olive oil is called liquid gold. It’s not because it’s shiny. It’s because you have to work so hard for every drop.

Picture this: 350 trees, nets everywhere, olives raining down, hauling heavy crates uphill, rushing to the mill, pressing… and then? A glorious 30 liters. Yep, thirty. Hard labor never tasted so good.

The Harvest Chronicles

2023: The Level-Up

2023? We leveled up. We knew which end of the net was up. Result: 60 liters. Progress!

2024: The Record Year

2024? Boom. A record year. Lots of olives, fat, shiny, hanging in bunches like grapes. Pure bliss.

We fine-tuned our strategy. Forget the Italian way of nets-on-the-ground. We invented the “flying net” method: four people holding a light net, two people shaking trees with the olive triller. Fast, furious, efficient. Outcome: 100 liters in just 1.5 days.

2025: The Reality Check

And then came 2025. You’d think the curve keeps going up, right? Nope. Mother Nature had other plans. A scorching summer invited the olive fly to the party. She laid her eggs in our olives. We got 45 liters. Ouch.

But hey, the fun didn’t stop. We laughed, we cursed, we learned pruning tricks from Stijn the Olive “maestro". We even managed to prune… two trees. Out of 350. Baby steps.

Liquid Treasure

Is it a pricey hobby? Absolutely. But every drop I drizzle on my salad now feels like liquid treasure. And for our guests? There’s a bottle waiting for you at Villa Lidia. Taste the sweat, the sun, and the stubborn joy of olive picking.

Cheers to liquid gold!