Take in the crisp, fresh air as you learn to care for and harvest olive trees on a secluded hilltop with Usal.
Joshuah Bearman is a writer and horticulture enthusiast who has discovered the pleasures of urban agriculture while stewarding three acres of land in the middle of Los Angeles.
Join the communal process of harvesting olive trees, a seasonal ritual thousands of years old. This will be a participatory event, where we will collect the fruit from a grove of 100-year-old Mission olive trees and prepare the year’s crop for pressing. You will learn about the growth cycle of olives, techniques for harvesting, and how the fruit is, pressed, bottled, and cured. **All participants will create a bottle of the oil pressed from our harvest, the first official yield from these mature, local trees! Bottles will be ready for pickup a few weeks after the event** Food will be provided by Apta Echo Park (@aptaechopark), and all tools will be provided, including rakes, nets, and rotoharvesters, which are those whirligigs on long poles you see in videos of charming old Italians pulling in their harvest.
Your bottle of olive oil will be available a few weeks after the event, as it'll be made with olives from your harvest!