Grow your own olives for pickling or making olive oil. We offer olive trees that can be grown outside as far north as Seattle. Although Western WA may not get enough summer heat to ripen them perfectly. They will require protection if temperatures get below 15° F. For best results, growing conditions should mimic a Mediterranean climate. Olive trees prefer long, hot summers and are drought tolerant.

Where summer heat is lacking or winter cold is a limiting factor, olives can be grown as a container plant. It can spend May through September outdoors and brought indoors in fall to a sunny window to ripen the crop. The grey-green leaves are generally evergreen and as a container plant it can be maintained at a six foot height. In the ground it only gets about 10 ft. 

The other reason olives are so popular has to do with its rich, nutty flavor, aromatic and buttery properties with exceptionally high oil content. Olives are not edible raw, they require soaking in brine or soaked in frequently changed water until bitterness is leached out.