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.