Welcome!



Feral olive tree on a South Australian sheep property - one of many - the owners collect the olives and produce their own olive oil.



Welcome to the Olive Garden. This blog will be about olives and their oil and the history of olives, but will also be about other things that interest me: books, gardening, cooking (especially with olive oil), health, yoga, embroidery. I live in Adelaide, South Australia, which with its Mediterranean climate is the perfect environment for growing olives and fruit and vegetables and flowers.

My interest in olives stems from my time at university, where I worked on a PhD thesis titled The Olive Oil Industry in Greek Antiquity, and although I didn't finish the thesis, I have retained this interest over the years. Now of course olive oil is the subject of much attention, and here in South Australia there are numbers of professional olive growers and producers of olive oil; not only do olive trees grow in gardens but feral olives abound in the local hills areas, to the disgust of land owners. Olives are hard to get rid of!

Books - I have recently bought a Kindle; it's been interesting, most people have said "Oh, but I love the feel of a book". I do too, but the Kindle is incredibly convenient; imagine going on holiday with as many books as you like, all in one convenient package! I'm currently reading one of the many downloadable free Classics, Middlemarch, on it, and seem to  concentrate better somehow - but that might be imagination.