Kapiti Newbies - Olives abundant :D

Hey all, our little family have just moved into a little lifestyle block in Peka Peka (Waikanae). We have an Olive Grove so we are learning big time how to make the most out of them. We're also learning to ferment all kinds of interesting products from fruit beers to sourdough bread, to non-alc beverages, saurkraut and chilli sauces.

Loving life here

Hoping to get a couple of lambs to help keep grass manageable but also for culling as we can't keep them in the grove for three months of the year. Would also like to grow some fruit trees aside from Olives so if anyone can recommend some types for this area, that would be awesome. We need lemons for a lot of our beverages but it's the wrong time of year. Hope they won't take too long to start bearing fruit.

Cheers
Karl & Charlie

What a gorgeous spot!
I know nothing about Olives so no help what so ever!

Welcome, Karl and Charlie, from up the road at Linton!
Meyer and Lisbon are the two most common varieties of lemon sold in nurseries. Meyers, which are actually a cross with a grapefruit, are hardy biggish trees...the ones that produce tonnes of large lemons that cover the ground with a somewhat squashy yellow carpet. Lisbons are smaller and a bit less hardy, bearing the sort of lemons sold in shops, with a more tart, 'lemony' flavor...not so prolific, but still year round, and they are less susceptible to the darkish mould that you often have to wash off Meyers. I prefer them for zest, since Meyers tend to have lots of tiny dimples that it's hard to remove that mould from.

Wow thanks for that information! I used to work out at the army camp 20 years back. Loved it out at Linton.

Question: If a Meyer is a cross between a lemon and grapefruit (I never knew)...

Do you know if people who are on medication that must avoid grapefruit, should also avoid Meyers? Or does that not matter?

Cheers
Charlie

The citrus family tree has many crosses in its branches. Here is one diagram.

There are many different coumarin and furanocoumarin compounds in citrus that can cause different drug interactions, and the different compounds vary across the varieties.
Here is a graph of the concentrations in some .
(From here )

Looks to me like to be safe those taking such drugs would need to avoid citron, pummelo, sour orange, grapefruit, and lime variants, as well as some mandarins and some lemons including the Meyer lemon.

Charlie, my memory played me false...Wikipedia says it's a cross between a citron and a mandarin orange.

Being a cross with the Mandarin makes it all that more frost tolerant which is why we grow them!