My very first home-grown fig yesterday–Desert King that my folks brought up from CA for me last month. It was pretty good. My daughter and I split it. She said it had an interesting honey flavor. Very jammy. I let it get real squishy before I picked it. It’s awesome to have such a good tasting early fig!
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Great job and congratulations on your first fig! I’m not familiar with the variety. Looks like you let it ripen almost too much by the photo.
I am just picking my first LSU Gold figs now and because they only turn a lighter shade of green it’s hard to know when they are fully ripe. I promised myself to let the next one almost drop in the bag on its own before I pick it. I’ll post a photo here.
I picked this fig because I thought they might be less noticed by the birds.
I also am using organza bags. So far so good.
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Congrats. It was brave of you to eat that. I consider that to look beyond ripe.
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Photo? Yeah, I may have waited a little too long before picking it, but I kept waiting for the top to get soft and everyone else talks about not picking them too early. Nonetheless, it was still wonderful. Just waiting now for all my other main crop figs to start producing since unfortunately that’s the only fig I’m getting this year from this Desert King.
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Don’t certain fig dry on the tree like raisins? Which ones?
Best to pick them as soon as they start dropping. I have a number of DK saplings I need to find a home for. They would probably grow well in Utah if you want to pay the shipping
Dennis
Kent Wa
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This one never drooped. Just stayed straight out. Thanks for offering, but I do have another DK in a pot that I grew from cutting the beginning of this year.
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My Chicago Hardy figs… change from green to ripening color… deep purplish brown… and will remain that ripening color for a few days… but the stem on the fig will be erect holding the fig out from the shoot some… then a few days later that same fig will be just hanging down… the stem is no longer erect… they darken in color some and the stem gets floppy and the fruit softer… thats when they are ready.
Mine start ripening in early August… what a treat.
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They look awesome! I also have them growing.
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I don’t know, but suspect it depends on climate and weather as much as variety.
I think the particular fig that kicked off this thread may have had an issue. Seems to have ripened unevenly.
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Yes, although most varieties that the figs can dry on the tree like that, they have to be in a location that is very dry during the ripening/drying process to do that.
The following varieties are known dry on the tree, I am sure that the following list is incomplete
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Hardy Chicago Types
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Moro de Caneva
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Sweet Diana (unknown)
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Campanière
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Malta Black
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White Madeira #1
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Hanc’s English Brown Turkey
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Sultane
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Florea
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BryantDark
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Nero 600m
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Black Bethlehem
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Adriatic JH
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Vasilika Sika (VS)
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Sweet Diana (unknown)
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Congratulations on your first fig, and wishing many more for the seasons to come!
Growing Chicago Hardy in Wisconsin, I am resigned to perhaps never getting fruit. This may not be well known, you can eat the leaves, and they are tasty.
Apparently this practice goes back to the Ancient Near East – Greece, Persia, Egypt. Fig leaves are used much in the way that grape leaves are used as wraps for fillings that could include rice, nuts or meat, More northern climates use cabbage leaves for this purpose.
I have steamed fig leaves on top of a pot of rice. Not only do the leaves taste of coconut, they impart this flavor on the rice. So not only do fig trees supply fruit, they are a perennial that provides a savory vegetable.
I have tried some of these “survival substitutions”, but after choking down boiled stinging nettles, spinach is so much better, and after gagging down steamed garlic mustard, garden-grown kale is much less bitter and easy to grow and save seed too. But to my palate, boiled or steamed fig leaves are actually pretty good. Have others here tried them?
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To PaulInMaplewood: Why don’t you think you’ll ever get fruit?
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Not saying I will never get fruit, and this is only the 2nd season of my figs “wintering over.”
But Madison, WI is at the far northern edge of the range of Chicago Hardy, and PaulInMaplewood me isn’t even thinking of starting them in Maplewood, WI, in southern Door County.
I have eaten steamed fig leaves, however, and I think they are really good. This is not “survival food” of eating cattail roots in place of potatoes or boiled stinging nettles to subsitute for spinach. If you cook stuffed cabbage leaves and especially stuffed grape leaves, I really think you should try stuffed fig leaves.
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I got my first fig this season. It was nickle-sized. I maybe let it get too ripe on the tree, but it was soft and sweet eating. Only one fig, yes, and I don’t care if they are tiny, but I am so looking forward to more as the trees mature.
This is on a planting of three Chicago Hardy trees, which I started from planting rooted cuttings in the ground. They are chest high by now. Any suggestions on how to “bed them in” for winter?
You are supposed to be able to let the tops of this variety freeze out and allow them regenerate from the roots every season, but so far, I have been covering them. They are at my home orchard in South Central Wisconsin, which is at the northern extreme of their range.
Each of three trees has an anti-rodent cage that I filled with cedar wood chips (sold in pet stores as gerbil bedding). Last season, I piled leaves around that and covered the whole thing with plastic film held down with small logs. I bent down the tops to fit under the plastic. The tops froze, so I just cut them off in late spring.
Every season these trees are bigger, and I am trying to come up with a plan to bed them in for this winter, that is, after they drop their leaves that they are still holding in late October.
Do I bend them over and cover with dirt? Will they be supple enough to bend without snapping?
Suggestions?
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Some in your situation go as far as undercutting the tree and bending it over. get the top as deep as possible. Then cover with soil. Place your insulating materials over that. Next spring stand it back up and fill in the soil.
It doesn’t take many roots to get adequate growth the next year. Might be worth a try on one tree.
Otherwise get the limbs as low as possible, cover with soil if possible, then more insulation.
In that area most would go with pots. That should give more fruit if you can get an earlier start than in ground.
I increase my fig harvest season by 3-4 months with a greenhouse. Greenhouse June to Dec. Outside part of August, September and maybe early Oct
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How does undercutting work? Where do I cut and how deep?
I think garlic-mustard is a component of a soup or stew, not great by itself. I’ve usually sliced the young leaves on a bias or just torn them up into the mix. Excellent flavoring!