Q: We have a Madagascar olive tree that has olives on it. What we have been trying to find out is when to pick the olives and how to cure them at home.
— Susan, Sebastian
A: Madagascar olive, also known as Noronhia emarginata, is a common tree or large shrub in the South Florida landscape as an ornamental plant. Native to its namesake, Madagascar, this evergreen woody plant is a member of the Oleaceae family which also contains jasmine, Ligustrum, ash, lilac and true olives.
Overall, the plant look is coarse-textured and the leaves are thick, rolled on the margins and leathery with a notch at the end. The branches are flattened and the trunk stout, which produces a dense crown. Noronhia is tolerant of coastal and urban conditions as well as most any soil as long as it is well-drained. Plant it in full sun and prune it when young for good branch structure as a small tree up to 25 feet or as a large shrub for screens and barriers. Madagascar olive is a subtropical or tropical species and tolerates about the same temperature range as citrus; temperatures below freezing can cause damage or death of the plant.
Flowers are produced on mature plants year-round. They are small, yellow, fleshy, inconspicuous and fragrant. The fruit or olives that follow the flowers are about 1 inch in diameter and a drupe or stone fruit-like peaches or traditional olives. When immature, the fruit is green ripening to dark purple and/or black. The flesh of the fruit is said to be sweet and edible.
I suspect that harvesting and processing Madagascar olive fruits is very similar to traditional olives, though I found no reports on specifically curing the Madagascar types. They may be harvested at any point of maturity, depending on preferred taste and use. A caution for home orchards, be sure pesticides not approved for use on edible crops, particularly herbicides such as used to control weeds in turf are used around plants from which fruit is harvested for consumption.
Olives for the table are typically processed as are pickles. The fruits, whether picked green or ripe, must be processed to remove a bitter compound contained in the flesh. This is where pickling comes into play; olives may be cured in brine, salt, water or a lye solution to remove the bitter taste and preserve the fruit. Each type of treatment produces a different texture and taste. For more information, the University of California at Davis publishes a bulletin on the home pickling of olives which may be viewed at http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8267.pdf.
Carol Cloud Bailey is a landscape counselor and horticulturalist. She can be reached at email@example.com.
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