Loading The Farming Year in Mazraat El Mechref…
The olive, fig, almond, tobacco and cereal year on the slopes — month by month, with the wet and dry seasons behind it and the dates that open the year.
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The farming year on the slopes of Mazraat El Mechref, month by month — when the olives, figs, almonds, tobacco and cereals are worked, the wet and dry seasons behind them, and the dates that open the year. A rain-fed (ba'l) hill village whose groves are kept by families at home and abroad.
It's August
Harvests: Figs · Harvests: Almonds · Harvests: Tobacco · Harvests: Grapes
dry season
The crop these hills are known for, grown ba'l — on rainfall alone. Picked as a family and carried straight to the ma'asara (press) for the year's oil; the trees are pruned in the frost-free weeks of late winter.
Source: Lebanon Traveler — the Lebanese olive harvest, checked 4 July 2026 (last month).
Fresh green and black figs through the late summer; the surplus is dried or boiled down to keep through the winter.
Source: 365 Days of Lebanon — the fig, checked 4 July 2026 (last month).
The first tree to flower — its blossom opens the year on the bare slopes in the depth of winter. Green almonds are eaten in spring; the nuts are gathered in high summer.
Source: Jabal Amil — main rain-fed products (olives, almonds, figs, grapes), checked 4 July 2026 (last month).
The cash crop of South Lebanon, grown on rain and morning dew and sold to the state Régie. Seedlings go in after the last cold; the leaves are picked, threaded and sun-dried through the summer, then baled before the first autumn rains.
Source: The Public Source — South Lebanon's tobacco farmers, checked 4 July 2026 (last month).
Rain-fed cereals: sown once the first autumn rains soften the ground, cut in early summer, then threshed on the baydar (threshing floor).
Source: Agriculture in Lebanon — rain-fed cereals harvested in June, checked 4 July 2026 (last month).
Vines on the terraces; the bunches come in at the end of the dry summer, some eaten fresh and some boiled into molasses (dibs).
Source: Jabal Amil — grapes among the main hill-village products, checked 4 July 2026 (last month).
sowing harvest
rainy season dry season frost risk
Rain-fed farming, and what the cistern holds
These slopes are ba'l — farmed on rainfall alone. There is no river and no irrigation timetable: the year's water is the winter rain and whatever the household cistern (birkeh) has stored. A dry winter is felt in every crop the following year.
These are the usual months, drawn from how the season runs across South Lebanon — not a forecast. A late or early rain, a cold spell, or a hot dry spring shifts sowing and harvest by weeks, and each grove and family keeps its own timing. For anything you are planting or selling, trust the ground and your neighbours over any calendar.
Source: Compiled from Lebanese olive, fig and tobacco sector reporting and FAO/encyclopedic agricultural sources; the months are the South-Lebanon norm, not a village survey., checked 4 July 2026 (last month).
Harvest: Figs +3
in August