Carmen – Olives to Oil Westside Festival 2026
Carmen – Brimbank Resident
How did you find out about this event?
I found out last year because of my neighbour. He told us that he booked for 100 kilos, and he told us and other neighbours to collect the olives from his tree as a group, and then we divided it equally according to how many kilos we collected. We collected more than 100kg in total.
My neighbour collected the olive oil, I tried it and I loved it and I gave some to my other neighbour as well. She left the oil for almost six months sitting on the bench, and then when she tried it after six months, she said, oh my gosh, that olive oil was amazing. I told them we will definitely do it again next year.
This year, I harvested the olives with my daughter and her best friend, who are here today [at the festival]. We got some from our backyard, some street trees in our neighbourhood and also from another neighbour’s tree. So it was it was like a community thing that we harvested olives.
I really love this programme. I wish we could do it more often. If I had more time, I would go to other areas to harvest olives as well. Because from the perspective of the environment, it’s not good to leave the trees because then there’s many olives on the ground.
What do you like about this event and would you come along next year?
Definitely, I will come next year, and I’m hoping to pick up more kilos every year and keep increasing my [olive oil] cup. I also encourage other people to do it because it’s such a great way to create your own olive oil. I use olive oil almost every day. So just having that feeling that you have fresh olive oil is amazing. And you use it. I told my husband, that we did it, we made this olive oil. We collected the olives and collected the oil. And they get amazed. I didn’t know that was so easy. A lot of people think there’s more processing involved. So I learned that and my daughter learned that and I’m sure she will keep doing it when she is grown up.
Photo credits: Stephen McKenzie