What we grow
Olives, cereals and produce — planned as one season
Three crops with three different clocks, farmed across the same 2,140 hectares. Below is what we grow, when it comes off the land, and the form it reaches you in.
- Olive area
- 780 ha
- Cereal area
- 1,010 ha
- Irrigated produce
- 350 ha
The growing year
Nothing here overlaps by accident
Cereal comes off in the fierce heat of June, produce runs through the summer under drip, and the olive harvest closes out the year. Sequencing the three is what lets the same crews, machines and water serve all of them without any one crop being rushed.
Permanent crop · 780 ha
Olives & olive oil
Two-thirds of our olive area is traditional Galega Vulgar, some of it planted in the early sixties at 10 by 10 metre spacing. The rest is hedgerow Arbequina and Cobrançosa planted since 2011, which carries the volume while the old groves carry the character.
Fruit is picked between mid-October and late December, sequenced by maturity index rather than by convenience. Trunk shakers work the traditional groves; the hedgerow blocks are straddle-harvested at night when the fruit is cool.
Everything is milled within eight hours at two-phase mills in Évora and Ferreira do Alentejo. That interval is the single biggest factor in free acidity, and it is why we plan harvest around mill slots rather than the other way round.
- Varieties
- Galega Vulgar, Cobrançosa, Arbequina, Picual
- Harvest window
- Mid-October to late December
- Free acidity
- Typically 0.18–0.30% for extra virgin lots
- Formats
- Bulk in 1,000 L IBC and food-grade tanker; table olives in brine drums
Arable · 1,010 ha
Cereals
Dryland durum wheat, malting and feed barley, oats and triticale, grown on a four-year rotation that always includes a legume break. Around two-thirds of the cereal area is never irrigated — on this soil, in this rainfall, that is the honest yield.
Sowing runs from late November into December, timed to the first reliable rains rather than a fixed date. Harvest is compressed into three or four weeks from mid-June, which is why the combine fleet and crew planning matter more here than anywhere else on the farm.
Grain goes into our own stores at Beja with temperature and moisture monitoring, so we can hold a lot for a buyer rather than dumping it into a soft post-harvest market.
- Varieties
- Durum wheat, barley (malting and feed), oats, triticale
- Harvest window
- Mid-June to mid-July
- Storage
- 11,000 t on site at Beja, monitored and aerated
- Formats
- Bulk tipper, big bag, or held to call-off
Irrigated · 350 ha
Seasonal produce
Processing and fresh-market tomatoes, melons, sweet peppers and winter squash, grown under drip on the irrigated blocks. Short, planned runs — we plant against a contract, never on speculation.
Planting is staggered from late March so picking spreads across the summer instead of arriving all at once. Crops are picked to order, crated in the field and into cold chain within two hours.
Buyers agree volumes and windows with us over winter. If you need 400 tonnes of processing tomato in the second week of August, that is a conversation we want to have in January.
- Crops
- Processing & fresh tomato, Cantaloupe and Piel de Sapo melon, sweet pepper, squash
- Harvest window
- Late April to early November, staggered
- Certification
- GLOBALG.A.P.; 62 ha under EU organic
- Formats
- Field crate, IFCO, bulk bin, or to buyer packaging
Buying from us
Volumes, windows and paperwork
| Crop | Minimum lot | Contract by | Documents |
|---|---|---|---|
| Olive oil | 5,000 L | End of August | CoA, lot trace, organic cert. |
| Cereals | 25 t | End of February | CoA, moisture & protein, store record |
| Produce | 10 t per week | End of January | GLOBALG.A.P. GGN, residue report |
Smaller trial lots are possible for new partners — ask us. Delivery by road across Iberia and into France, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden.
Trade enquiries
Tell us what you need and when you need it
Send us the crop, the volume and the delivery window. If we can grow it well here we will say so, and if we cannot we will tell you that too — usually within two working days.