The English Olive Press; September ‘26
The record breaking summer with five recorded heatwaves has finished, with the end of August finally giving us some rain. The olive trees have enjoyed this summer, their third in The Lincolnshire Fens, and we are excited about the trees and olives development for harvest 2026.
Welcome to autumn and welcome to all our new subscribers, including many of you from Norway following presenter Gry from NRK TV visiting us! Thank you all for subscribing. This newsletter updates on what we have been up to in August, which has been a month where we have been treated to a solar eclipse, an empty reservoir, some rain and the olives and trees growing well.
The UK weather has broken many records this year, with May, June and July all being the hottest months on record, and the lack of rain has meant that the infamous summer of 1976 drought has also been surpassed by what will be a memorable 2026. UK weather records started in 1884 and the summer of 2026 has been the hottest ever recorded, having beaten the previous record of 2025. With more than two months of no rain then August treated us to 66mm (2.5”), which has about doubled our entire spring and summer total rainfall, and came just as we had used the last of our reservoir water.
Our olive grove was established for three main reasons, but the primary reason was to work with climate change and start to grow crops which may suit the changing climate better. Establishing the olive grove in 2024 after five years of research and seeing warmer and dryer weather trends for many years before that, then during this summer it did seem like a half decent idea! But, and it is a big but, with climate change we also get the other end of extreme temperatures, the cold and frosts. If severe, the cold could cause a lot of challenges and deaths to our trees. We have chosen cold hardy varieties but the weather will always be the ultimate boss in determining their levels of success and failure. The second reason to start the business was to have our own brand, which we named The English Olive Co, where we can control the product all the way from the field (or grove) to the finished product. The final reason was to offer opportunities for the next generation, in case they want to get involved in the farm or in the land diversification projects, such as the olive grove. As farmers we are only the current custodians of the land, and trying to keep our family land and business viable, relevant and fit for the future during these challenging times is a must for us.
On the evening of 12th August many of us looked skywards and were treated to a near perfect solar eclipse, but relying on just my phone to try and capture the event over the olive grove didn’t give the best results! The olive grove did get cooler and darker for 10-15 minutes as the eclipse happened, but brightness and the warm temperature soon returned. There were many brilliant images shared on social media, but my images didn’t make the ‘brilliant’ category!
Solar eclipse over the olive grove
The olive trees have generally more than doubled in size so far this year, and very soon a couple of the varieties will have branches meeting down the row. The warm weather and our trickle irrigation has encouraged excellent root, tree and olive growth, with the trickle irrigation being crucial to the growth. We started irrigation in April, and have applied 310mm of water from our winter rainfall filled reservoir to the 10 hectare (25 acres) olive grove this year, which is 31,000m3 or 31m litres (an Olympic swimming pool holds 2.5m litres)! This is a lot of water, but even though this year has been dryer and warmer than last year, this is 20% less than we applied last year, as the olive tree roots are larger and more developed, so they can scavenge more moisture for themselves.
We are now in our third summer of having olives on the farm, and our crop husbandry knowledge is increasing; hopefully making less mistakes and having more successes. We are amending some of our practises as we learn which operations and activities and timings are more suited to UK conditions, and that learning will continue year after year. We have learnt that pruning, to encourage branching, has to be done in time for the new branches which will form, to be hardy enough to withstand their first frosts - so our last pruning will be this month (rather than carry on into October).
Some of the olive trees are loaded with olives, while others are more limited, but it is great to see for the first time that all ten of our varieties have flowered and have fruit, to varying extents, for the first time. With the fruit getting bigger and harvest a couple of months away then we have been checking over our olive washing and milling line before we get busy with potato harvest. Last year we recorded when the fruit was approaching a suitable ripeness level to harvest, and it will be interesting to see if that is replicated this year. The photos below show three different varieties, and it is clear to see where the more mature olives are already forming their hard stone, while less mature ones are still quite fleshy.
Three olive varieties showing their differing levels of maturity and stone development.
During August we were pleased to welcome a few visitors to the olive grove, and also be featured on Norwegian TV, following an earlier visit by Gry from NRK, Norway Broadcast Corporation TV. Gry was doing a piece about climate change and the challenges and opportunities that brings to society, and featured The English Olive Co as an example of ‘new’ crops being grown at a more northernly latitude. NBC (the Norwegian equivalent to our BBC) ran the TV feature on 23rd August, and we welcome and thank our new social media and Newsletter followers from Norway!
We were also very fortunate to have Nancy Gilchrist from Matters of Taste visit us from Oxfordshire. Nancy is an olive oil sommelier and is also one of only 420 ‘Masters of Wine’ (MV) in the world. Nancy has been teaching at the Leith school of food, and hosts many education and food & drink pairings, and kindly shared some of her knowledge and her views on where the exciting industry is heading. Nancy has travelled, visited and made acquaintances with many olive oil growers and millers in Europe and South Africa, including Morgenster Estate in SA who we featured in our August newsletter!
Gry from Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation visits David and the olive grove. Nancy Gilchrist (MV) from Matters of Taste sampling English Olive Oil for her first time.
Harvest 2026 will hopefully be in late October or early November (weather dependant) and will come around quickly; we will be in touch nearer the time looking for volunteers to help with the hand picking harvest! It can be a cold and windy time of year in the Lincolnshire Fens then, but we can warm people up with some hot food and drinks as a small thank you! We will communicate this call for volunteering harvest first to our Newsletter subscribers, before we ask on social media.
Please continue to check us out on Instagram and Facebook @TheEnglishOliveCo, and we thank you for helping us to reach the small milestone of 1,000 Instagram followers, and not far behind on Facebook!
We wish you all a great autumn, David