Thought you guys would enjoy this. Our Texas blue giant is living up to its name this year and producing some monster figs. Picked this today. 1/4 lb and larger than some peaches! Crazy!
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But how does it taste?
Ill have to ask my daughter after she eats it. Im not really a fig fan. We grow them mainly to make jam out of for our market.
Wow, Eric, that is some huge fig. If you have cuttings next season, I’d like to try my hand at this fig. Pretty cool. LOVE fig jam. You’ll have to share your jam recipe with us!
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Beauitiful fig, Eric. Even though I can’t grow them here, I’d love the jam recipe too. I’m sooo jealous. Just one peach, apricot, plum that would survive.
Yes, please do!
Fig Jam:
4 cups mashed fruit
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 cups sugar
3tsp Pomona pectin
4 tsp calcium water (part of pomona pectin)
Peel figs (optional) then cook whole fruit in pot until soft. Then puree in food processor. Then measure out the 4 cups for the recipe. All back in pot and add lemon juice and calcium water. Stir well and bring to boil. In a seperate bowl mix pectin and sugar well. Once the pot of fruit is boiling add sugar pectin mix. Stir for 2 mins. Return to boil. Then can.
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Thank you
Be happy to send you out some cuttings this coming winter. Remind me if I forget.
Just add cheese and you have a complete dessert with just one fig.
You and your ginormous fig took just a touch of joy for the day. (but not too much) I have a Kadota fig wimp. Seriously. It was a whip of a tree when I got it last summer and it is still. It’s being stubborn about branching. Probably because I’ve been too stubborn about just giving in and hacking the thing back to encourage it. I can’t bring myself to do that because it’s crowded with fruit. It’s been producing 2 good sized figs for each leaf, just like last year. I wonder if it will grow out of that habit once it’s older. The brebas have gotten larger than I remember any of its fruits getting last year.The figs look like one large, overcrowded cluster. Today I went to feel how tightly they were pushing against each other because that crowded because I worried that that crowding would impact their development. Surprise! Those brebas weren’t just large. They were softening and almost ready to pick. I’ve never had a fresh fig in May. I probably won’t this year. either, since the daughters are huge fig fans. They will get first dibs.
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Won’t see ripe figs here until the 2nd or 3rd Santa Ana wind this summer – probably September at the earliest and more likely October.
Yeah thanks, I have Pomona. My favorite jams I make are
black and blue jam - blackberries and blueberries.
Wild black and red raspberry. Only wild types, this is amazing!
blackberry-kiwi jam
Mulberry-currant jam - this is perfection!
Yellow raspberry jam - gelled gold! Amazingly good.
All berry jam - wyeberry, tayberry, boysenberry, mulberry, currant - Wow! You can add any other berry too, regular blackberries or raspberries.
I remove all seeds except for the kiwi.
Pretty much follow the same recipe as the figs 4 cups fruit, 2 cups sugar. I blend the kiwi.
These all have some natural pectin so use no sugar pectin and it will gel. It’s a skill to know when it’s done. Boil till you see gelling, stir constantly. 5-10 minutes at most. You can grate apple into it to add more pectin. If it doesn’t take, start over add more pectin, a little more sugar.
Don’t forget the lemon or lime, you can use either.
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Thanks, Eric! I’ll put a reminder in my iPhone (aka “brain”). I’ll swap you some cuttings 
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You guys should put those recipes in the Using Fruit category to make them easier to find when needed.
What difference would there be using a type like Sure Jell instead of Pomona? I’ve never seen the Pomona pectin for sale in this area.
Wow, I’m impressed.
Pomana is a calcium based gelling agent. It’s not pectin. It doesn’t require huge amounts of sugar to gel. You can use 1/2 cup if you want. It works really well too, but it’s not good for jelly. It is cloudy, some say leaves a calcium taste, I never tasted it, but texture is slightly different. I like using it with strawberries as they have no natural pectin. I’m going to try strawberry perserves this year. I’m not happy with the jam.
Figs probably have no pectin, so if using traditional pectin you probably need to double the sugar, which IMHO would ruin it. You can buy Pomana on Amazon.
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Thanks Drew
These aren’t monsters, but I wanted to post a pic to show some of the perfectly juicy, ripe and tasty kadotas that I picked this morning. Our Brown Turkeys usually get ripe in early July. So, having fresh figs in May was a major treat.
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That’s a big 'un. Like the deep purple color
I got “Jack’s Quarter-Pounder” from Jack Thomas, a number of years back - aka Mega-Magnolia…it’s in the Brunswick/Magnolia group - huge figs, but they have a very open eye and are prone to souring in wet weather and ant infestation.
I’ve not had a huge fig that tasted good. They are watery for me.