Make your own olive oil!

This starter kit comes with five small fruit producing olive trees, a 16 ounce bottle of olive oil pressed in 2012 from mature trees of the same variety and an invitation to participate in the 2013 harvest to learn about the process.

The trees are of Tuscan variety, Frantoio and Leccino - heavy oil producing varietals. The trees are around 3 years of age and around four feet tall.

Frantoio olive trees are the primary varietal used in Tuscan oil production. This olive tree is self-fertile, meaning it doesn't require another variety to set fruit, but is also an excellent pollenizer to other olive trees. The Frantoio olive tree grows in semi-pendulous fashion, with dark green-gray leaves. The fruit also makes a good table olive after curing, with a slightly nutty flavor to the medium-sized fruit.

Oil from the Leccino olive tree is more delicate than Frantoio, and the small to medium fruit is also used for table olives. The olives ripen into black ovals practically all at once, so be prepared. The Leccino olive tree is a vigorous grower, with gray leaves and a graceful airy habit. Comptaible olive tree pollenizers include Pendolino, Maurino, Picholine and Frantoio.

Winner may want to add a Pendolino olive tree as an additional pollenizer. (Pendolino olive trees are used extensively as pollenizers in large olive tree groves.)