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THE ARCHITECTURE ISSUE
The Chronicle Review's yearly look at architecture examines buildings on and off campuses. Above, Caltech's new Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, designed by Morphosis. (Chronicle photograph by Lawrence Biemiller)
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The artist James Turrell turned a Pomona College courtyard into a work of art worth waking up at dawn for.
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About Buildings & Grounds
Buildings & Grounds is written by Scott Carlson (left) and Lawrence Biemiller (right). Scott Carlson writes about architecture, facilties, energy, and sustainability, among other topics. Lawrence Biemiller writes about architecture and facilities and contributes to Notes from Academe. What's happening on your campus? Let us know.
At Caltech, a Festival Draws Volunteers to Harvest Olives From Campus Trees
If you’re anywhere near Pasadena today, you might want to stop by the California Institute of Technology for the Olive Harvest Festival, during which volunteers gather olives from about 130 trees scattered across the campus.
The harvest’s organizers say they are building on lessons learned since 2005, when a student named Kristen Kozak harvested some Caltech olives and attempted to cure them with salt, only to discover that they were infested with fruit flies. She and several friends gathered olives the following year and succeeded in pressing them to produce olive oil, which was declared “delicious.”
Last year brought the first large-scale harvest, which drew more than 350 volunteers but produced only about 30 gallons of oil, in part because of “close to 100 percent” fruit-fly infestation. This year the university’s grounds department has fought back, spraying the trees with an “organic, molasses-based fly repellant,” and also trapping flies in plastic bottles that attract the pests with a yeast-and-sugar mixture. The trees were recently reported to be fly-free.
If all goes well, today’s volunteers will harvest between two and four times as many olives as were gathered last year. Some of the olives will be hand-pressed on the campus so that their oil can be served this evening at a outdoor harvest dinner. It has “bread and olive oil, beef and vegetable skewers, greek salad, and baklava” on the menu, plus entertainment by the Caltech Jazz Band.
The rest of the olives will be sent to the Santa Barbara Olive Company for processing, and the oil will go on sale in the Caltech bookstore in about a month.
Lawrence Biemiller | Friday November 7, 2008 | Permalink | Contact usComments
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I’m not a rocket scientist, nor an olive tree expert but I’ve lived in Southern California long enough NOT to eat the olives off the trees that have been planted around here for decorative purposes.
— FCapobianco Nov 7, 06:26 PM #
A Scripps core course on global food production has led to a project this Friday, Nov. 14, to harvest fallen fruit on campus to inspire deeper thinking about food among students, faculty and staff.
Previously, students mapped the locations of fallen fruit and hung the map in the campus coffeehouse. There are 27 varieties of fruit trees on campus.
Volunteers will gather oranges, kumquats and other fruits to make marmalade by adding pectin and putting the sweet jam in jars. Those who make the jam can keep it, and any left would be sold to raise funds for future community projects.
— Mary Bartlett Nov 10, 01:45 PM #