Olive picking time in the Luberon

We have been enjoying some very still, sunny weather after a couple of weeks of rain.  This morning we walked up the little path to the olive groves behind Les Bassacs to find that the olives are being picked.  

It is still a prosaic scene, even with the use of the vibrating rake connected to tractor batteries! Traditionally olives are picked by combing them off the branches with hand rakes into baskets tied onto the waist of the picker or dropped into nets beneath the tree.  This was something that Vincent Van Gogh painted in 1889, and a method that was current until about 5 years ago here.

The Olive Orchard, 1889 Vincent Van Gogh

Our pickers were employing vibrating rakes. This means that they didn't have to climb ladders to get to the olives. The olives are being harvested at this green stage to be preserved in brine and sold in the markets on those marvellous olive stalls in the summer. If the olives were being used to make oil they would have been left until they had turned purple or black.  These women had come from Robion to do the picking and the olives were going to the Robion olive co-operative to be treated.