Nets go down and poles come up when you reserve an olive picking day in Kardamyli during harvest

Picking, and then the mill

You are on the terraces at 08:00, because the work starts when the light does. Nets go down under a tree, someone climbs into the branches with a comb, and the rest of it is poles and patience: the crop comes off in a rattle onto the net, gets dragged clear, and the leaves are separated out by hand and by a small blower. You will do three or four trees over the morning and be surprised how few that is. Around 13:00 the sacks go to a mill that only runs for about six weeks a year and stands cold and silent for the rest. You watch one load go through from weighing to the first green pour. The day ends at 15:00.

Hands, shoulders and a long stoop

Seven hours outdoors with very little sitting. The walking is nothing, a few hundred metres between trees, but the stooping is constant and the pole work uses shoulders that most people do not use for anything else. Expect to feel it the next morning. The terraces are stepped, with drops of a metre or so between them and loose stones along the edges, so this is not a day for anyone unsteady on uneven ground. Bring gloves you do not mind ruining, because the fruit stains and the leaf dust gets everywhere. Nobody is timing you and nobody minds if you stop; the grove owner has picked beside slower hands than yours.

Where the price stops

From $138 per person, the figure holds the grove owner's time from 08:00 to 15:00, the use of nets, poles and combs, and the visit to the mill with a load that is actually being pressed. It does not hold transport out to the grove, lunch, gloves, or anything you take home. Oil can usually be bought at the mill, from the mill, and that is between you and them. This office never takes money: the company that runs the day bills you in its own name and is billed by us afterwards for commission. Since the mill only runs for about six weeks, this day exists inside that window and nowhere else in the year.

Awkward things people ask about this day

When in the year does this actually happen?

Only in the picking weeks, which usually open in the second half of November and run into December. The exact start moves with the fruit and with the weather, sometimes by a fortnight, and it is set locally rather than by a calendar. Ask for a date inside that window and you will be told whether the mill is running yet. Outside the window the day does not exist.

Can we take a case of oil home with us?

That is not something we arrange. Oil is sold at the mill by the people who press it, in whatever containers they have, and any question about carrying it home, how much and in what, is between you, them and whoever checks your luggage. We do not ship goods, we do not sell them, and we take no payment for anything you buy on the day.

Is there such a thing as a bad year?

Yes, and they come round often. Olives crop heavily one year and lightly the next, and a hot spring or a wet harvest can thin it further. In a light year there is less to pick and the mill runs shorter hours, so you may see one load instead of three. What does not change is the work itself, the terraces and the six weeks of cold stone. Nobody here will tell you in advance what the crop will be.