Most of the fresh produce used at Hotel Saga is grown organically on the Alexopoulou family’s own farm. The farm is situated near Trizinia, a prized farming area, less than ten kilometres from the island on the adjacent Peloponnese mainland.
Several different types of olives are grown and harvested each winter when they ripen, usually in about November. The larger ones, particularly the huge Kalamata types, are preserved in the hotel kitchen and kept for eating through the coming year and the smaller varieties are used to produce the excellent olive oil used every day in the food made by Zefi. The olive press for the area is within a few kilometres of the farm and the harvest is fine enough to be pressed and bottled on its own rather than being mixed with the produce from other farms. It takes about 5.5 kg of olives to make a litre of oil and it will take an experienced picker about three quarters of an hour to pick these olives.
Many types of oranges and tangerines and, of course, lemons are also grown on the farm and find their way to Saga. Different varieties flower and ripen at different times of the year so a year round supply is ensured. Needless to say citrus fruit is much easier to pick than olives but as they do not all ripen at once they have to be picked several times.
There is a fine colony of free range hens at the farm too daily laying the eggs which are cooked for breakfast at the hotel and used in the many cakes and puddings which Zefi makes for her guests. Geese, rabbits, pigeons and, seasonally, the odd pig make up the remainder of the livestock at the farm and at times make their way into the dishes cooked in the hotel kitchen or on to the barbecue. Stale bread, vegetable peelings, grains and uneaten fruit from the hotel are used to supplement the organic diet fed to the livestock thus cutting down on waste and ensuring the cycle goes on – recycling at its simplest level.
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