Based on a recipe by Sandal English (Fruits of the Desert)

Pick them full sized dark or green (just as they are beginning to change color). What makes a black or green olive is how ripe it is when picked.

Rinse olives. Slit each olive deeply. Submerge and soak olives in a brine of 1 cup of salt to a gallon of water. Don’t use metal containers – I like to use 5 gallon pickle buckets from a local deli. Leave in a cool place for two months or so.

Stir the olives daily if you like, though you don’t need to. A mold will form on the surface of the water, that’s OK. Change the water once every two weeks or once a month. Don’t put this salty water on your plants. Skim off the mold and put it in your compost. To keep the olives from contacting the mold, submerge a ceramic plate just below the surface of the water, above the olives. The plate may come into contact with the mold, but not the olives.

After two months or so, rinse your olives well. Fill screw-top jars 2/3 full of olives, add herbs (garlic cloves, oregano, sage, rosemary, thyme, chiles, what you like) and two lemon wedges (find a neighborhood lemon tree). Cover all with a mixture of 1 pint vinegar, 1 pint water, 1 tablespoon salt. Top all this with a 1/2 layer of olive oil and screw the lid on tight. Turn the jar upside down for a week (so the oil will seep through the olives) and then store right-side up. The olives will keep for several years.