Last edited by shiny on November 12, 2026. View history
Olive
Olive
How to sow olive: Transplant grafted sapling
Sun requirement for olive: Plant in Full Sun
The Olive is an evergreen shrub or tree native to the Mediterranean, Asia, and Africa that is grown for its fruits, which are also known as olives. The plant is short and squat, with a gnarled trunk, rounded crown, oblong silvery green leaves, and shallow roots. Olive trees produce fruit in their third or fourth year from small, white, feathery flowers that bloom on the previous year's wood. There are hundreds of cultivars of olives, most of which are self-sterile and require a secondary cultivar nearby for cross-pollination. Some cultivars are bred for oil production, others for fresh eating. Trees are drought-tolerant and require about 200 hours of temperatures below 10° C to produce flowers. Temperatures below -5.5° C can kill young trees, mature trees cannot survive temperatures below to -9.4° C. Olive fruits are small, oblong drupes 1-2.5 cm long. They are harvested when green to purple and are usually pickled or cured for fresh eating to reduce their bitterness. Olives can be grown in containers and indoors in cooler regions.
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Olive facts
Lifespan
Height × spread
760cm × 600cmRow Spacing
500cmGrown for
fruit harvested 3 timesCrop cycle
Max altitude
Optimal light
What are growing degree days?
A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.
Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.
For olive, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 5°C and a shortest growing cycle of 365 days at its best temperature, about 8030 growing degree days to a first harvest.
Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your olive will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.
How members grow olives
Sunniness
Planted from
Harvested for
Plant olives with
rosemary
thyme
Photos
Photos
Olive crops
Olive plantings
Olive harvests
Video
Where olives grow
Only plantings by members who have set their locations are shown.
What people are saying about olives
carrots
Who's planted olives
- wrdnrd Canterbury — Deck · UDistrict, Seattle,...
- fe2h2o Orchard · North of the River...
- Dan Rhubarb Views · Ballarat
- tiki19 Drylands unirrigated food forest · Thornlie, Perth,...
- lambda_foo Orchard · Sydney, Australia
Olive harvests
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shiny harvested 17.
7 months ago
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shiny harvested 10.
over 1 year ago
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shiny harvested not specified.
over 8 years ago
shiny harvested 17.
Find olive seeds
There are no seeds available to trade on Growstuff right now.
- Purchase seeds via Ebay
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Time to harvest
If sown now, expect a first harvest in about 365 days.
From the growing cycle in the FAO EcoCrop database, which is the same wherever it is grown.
Ecological requirements
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Olea europaea L.
| Family / Taxonomy | Magnoliopsida Asteridae Scrophulariales Oleaceae |
|---|---|
| Killing temperature | growth: 0 °C, rest: -10 °C |
| Life form | tree |
| Life span | perennial |
| Habit | erect |
| Optimal soil depth | deep (>>150 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | medium, light |
| Optimal soil fertility | moderate |
| Optimal soil drainage | well (dry spells) |
Learn more about olives
Resources outside Growstuff.
