Post by alexintx on Jul 12, 2019 14:11:05 GMT -5
I’m not meaning to clog up the non-carnivore board, but I do have lots of non-carnivorous plants of various kinds and I just harvested a wonderful fig off of one of my trees. It made me wonder if any of y’all grow them.
Around here, figs are the single easiest fruit to grow. They’re generally vigorous, hardy, free of diseases, don’t need any fertilizer, fruit heavily, and pest-free (aside from troublesome birds and mammals that steal fruit!) They’re also trivially easy to propagate, so they’re quite common, too.
The cool, rainy spring made my dogs start fruiting a bit later than normal, but with the water and delayed heat, they literally put on several feet of growth this year.
Today, I picked the first fig of the year. It’s from a NOID plant that’s a cutting of a cutting of a cutting of a plant we bought from a nursery labeled as "Brown Turkey", which it’s clearly not. I personally believe it’s "Brunswick" or similar. Regardless, the plant produces many very large figs, starting as early as mid-June some years and continuing until September or October. This fig is a tad underripe, but I had to get it before the birds or squirrels or raccoons, and it’s still very, very good.
You can see how big it is with the ruler next to it.
While I believe that any fresh fig still warm from the plant is quite possibly one of the most delicious things out there, this is a nice quality fig. The first thing that hits you is the intense sweetness, almost like caramellized honey. As the almost candy-like flavor fades, a nice, mild figgy flavor — like a less intense dried Smyrna fig — replaces it. The skin is thin and wonderfully sweet and tender. The biggest downside of this plant is the open eye: if there’s too much rain, the fig can ferment before it’s ripe!
The tree is pretty good sized, too. It’s easily 10-15’ tall.
While they take longer to ripen, I also love the other fig I’ve got: a "Green Ischia". It’s also incredibly vigorous, but it sets stupid large quantities of fruit. I’m talking like 5-10+ fruit per branch. It’s absurd. Plus, because the fruit stay greenish when they’re ripe, they’re less susceptible to vermin than my other fig. The downside is I don’t think these taste quite as good: the figgy flavor is more intense and they’ve got a nice almost berry-like flavor to them, but they tend to be somewhat less sweet and the skin tends to be pretty thick and doesn’t taste very good.
Who else grows figs? Do you have any favorite varieties? What’s your best producer? Any solutions to vermin (maybe?)?
Around here, figs are the single easiest fruit to grow. They’re generally vigorous, hardy, free of diseases, don’t need any fertilizer, fruit heavily, and pest-free (aside from troublesome birds and mammals that steal fruit!) They’re also trivially easy to propagate, so they’re quite common, too.
The cool, rainy spring made my dogs start fruiting a bit later than normal, but with the water and delayed heat, they literally put on several feet of growth this year.
Today, I picked the first fig of the year. It’s from a NOID plant that’s a cutting of a cutting of a cutting of a plant we bought from a nursery labeled as "Brown Turkey", which it’s clearly not. I personally believe it’s "Brunswick" or similar. Regardless, the plant produces many very large figs, starting as early as mid-June some years and continuing until September or October. This fig is a tad underripe, but I had to get it before the birds or squirrels or raccoons, and it’s still very, very good.
You can see how big it is with the ruler next to it.
While I believe that any fresh fig still warm from the plant is quite possibly one of the most delicious things out there, this is a nice quality fig. The first thing that hits you is the intense sweetness, almost like caramellized honey. As the almost candy-like flavor fades, a nice, mild figgy flavor — like a less intense dried Smyrna fig — replaces it. The skin is thin and wonderfully sweet and tender. The biggest downside of this plant is the open eye: if there’s too much rain, the fig can ferment before it’s ripe!
The tree is pretty good sized, too. It’s easily 10-15’ tall.
While they take longer to ripen, I also love the other fig I’ve got: a "Green Ischia". It’s also incredibly vigorous, but it sets stupid large quantities of fruit. I’m talking like 5-10+ fruit per branch. It’s absurd. Plus, because the fruit stay greenish when they’re ripe, they’re less susceptible to vermin than my other fig. The downside is I don’t think these taste quite as good: the figgy flavor is more intense and they’ve got a nice almost berry-like flavor to them, but they tend to be somewhat less sweet and the skin tends to be pretty thick and doesn’t taste very good.
Who else grows figs? Do you have any favorite varieties? What’s your best producer? Any solutions to vermin (maybe?)?