Olive trees
If we would have to single out one plant that labeled Dalmatia and Island of Brač as well as existance of people in this area, that would be olive! That is confirmed with an information of 4,5 milion olive trees in Dalmatia! One milion of these are on Island Brač.
Olive is very special kind of tree, it can live few thousands years and it is almost indestructable, it rejuvenate itself, it doesn’t seek much attention or water. The most importnat for olive tree is to have enough sunshine. It doesnt need much soil, or water.
Olive tree was recognized as special tree from ancient times. According to Solomon’s law in ancient Greece it was forbidden to cut more than 2 trees per olive grove per year!
Firm and tough tree was used to make tools, mostly for maintaining the land, but also for weapons (Herculeses club was made of olive tree), and it also symbolises strength and loyalty (Odysseus and Penelopes wedding bed was built on an olive log). But, the most important symbol of an olive branch is Peace.
Olive fruit as well as olive oil have been nutritional basis in Mediterranean area „since forever“. But also healing basis. Olive oil has a lot of important healthy features. It is a „good cholesterol“ oil and also a digestiv correctiv: one spoon of olive oil before breakfast lowers the risk of breast cancer for 45%. Olive oil provides a good quality sun protection and is an important ingredient in cosmetics industry.
On our Island you can find many sorts of olives, but one named OBLICA is the most common. Oblica has rather big and oval fruit that weights up to 5 g. It is usually ripe from mid october till mid december, and we use it also to make conserved green and black olives, not only to make oil.
Here on our land we have more then 600 olive trees, many of which was burned in big fire in 2011.
After we bought the land we had to work hard in order to prune this big bushes that we found and to shape them into fruit giving trees. Olives start to give fruit at seven years old, so we expect the fruits of our labor to come soon J. Big thanks for all of our friends, visitors and volunteers that helped us and still are helping with this.
Except from this young trees we also have about 200 old trees. Some of those are creating our Olive Alley, our favourite resting place in shade in the summertime afternoons.
Masline
Ako bismo morali izdvojiti jednu biljku koja je obilježila Dalmaciju i Brač i život ljudi na ovom području, to bi bila maslina. O tome govori i podatak da u Dalmaciji ima oko 4,5 milijuna stabala masline, a od toga na Braču čak oko milijun stabala.
Maslina je posebno drvo, može doživjeti više tisuća godina i praktički je neuništiva, pomlađuje se, a ne traži mnogo, najvažnije joj je da bude što više okupana suncem. Raste na škrtom tlu, gotovo bez vode.
Od davnih vremena maslina je dobijala poštovanje koje zaslužuje pa je tako npr po Solomonov zakoniku u antičkoj Grčkoj bilo zabranjeno posjeći više od 2 stabla godišnje po masliniku!
Čvrsto maslinovo drvo koristilo se za alat, ali i za oružje (Herkulesova je toljaga bila od maslinova drveta), a simbolizira snagu te vjernost i odanost (Odisejeva i Penelopina bračna postelja načinjena je na panju od maslinovog drveta). Ipak, možda je najvažniji od svih simbola koji maslina predstavlja maslinova grančica koja je simbol mira.
Plod masline i ulje od davnih su dana osnova prehrane u mediteranskom području, ali ne treba zanemariti ni ljekovita svojstva ulja. Naime, osim što spada u „dobre kolesterole“ i djeluje kao probavni „korektiv“, žličica ulja prije doručka u žena smanjuje rizik od dobivanja raka dojke za 45 %.
Koristi se obilno u kozmetičkoj industriji i kvalitetna je zaštita od sunca.
Na Braču je rasprostranjeno nekoliko sorti, ali recimo da je od njih najzastupljenija Oblica.
Karakterizira je krupan, pomalo okrugao plod težine do 5 g. Plod dozrijeva od sredine listopada do sredine prosinca, a osim za dobivanje maslinovog ulja često se koristi i za konzerviranje (zelena ili crna maslina).
Na Zemlji za nas imamo nešto više od 600 maslina od kojih je veliki broj izgorio u požaru što je zahvatio Brač 2011. Nakon toga trebalo je vratiti zabušala grmolika stabla u oblik koji će vremenom dati roda. Tu smo jako zahvalni svim prijateljima i volonterima koji su neumorno bili (i još jesu) uz nas. Očekujemo da uskoro ta stabla donesu rod.
Osim tih mladih stabala, imamo i 200tinjak starijih stabala od kojih jedan dio čini našu Aleju maslina, mjesto posebne ljepote u čijem hladu ljeti odmaramo.
Branje maslina najveseliji je od svih poslova, što zbog same činjenice da beremo plodove našeg rada i svete biljke, što zbog toga što uvijek okuplja prijatelje i obitelj u posebnoj atmosferi.