Grow Your Own Magazine

I bought myself a little olive tree last year , and much to my surprise , ended up with 30 odd fully ripe black olives ( I am right on the south coast !) Any ideas what to actually do with these ? I have heard they need to be brined to make them edible .

Well done, you wouldn't have thought an olive tree would fruit in this country, let alone on the south coast.

You could try this link, its got a few methods for 'curing' olives

Cure Your Own Olives - How to Cure Greek Olives - Greek Cooking Tips and Techniques

Good luck with them Loveday. Is this your real name? I have a daughter called Loveday and have only met three others in twenty seven years.

The very worst thing I have ever eaten was an olive straight from the tree whilst on holiday in Greece - aaargh, t'were awful, kind of sucked every little bit of moisture from my mouth and bitter, wasn't in it! So, judging by that, I can believe the bit about brine.

Good luck! And btw, I love olives done properly!

Not only should they be brined, but ideally given an alkaline treatment first (I suspect the website someone posted earlier is the one I found last year). There are toxins which the alkali removes.
For a simple, traditional, and relatively organic, version, cover the olives in moistened woodash for 5 days, then rinse clean and pack in jars with brine. You MUST keep them from contact with air while soaking up the brine!(ours went all odd where the air got to them).
I believe the alkali treatment is less important with black olives than green, but personally I can't stand black olives!
Hoping to try again this autumn, now we know the proper technique.....