Finally Harvesting Figs. Both of them!

Figs grow like weeds around here - there are giant trees poking out of hedgerows and from the walls of farmhouses which are now no more than a pile of river-washed boulders.  So how come our tree, one of the very trees purchased and planted has taken four years to produce a crop?

We chose Madeleine de deux Saisons, a golden variety that crops twice each season.  Eventually.

The little tree was bunged in a not too large hole in the clay with a bit of homemade compost to give it a start.  I've read that the huge vigour needs to be controlled in these plants in the UK, so just how rampant and uncontrollable is it going to be here with all that summer heat and winter rain?  Well, given that they seem quite able to reduce buildings to rubble, very!

Over the first summer it sat, inert and then eventually dropped its few leaves.  Oh, well. Maybe next year it would do the growing thing.  We were beginning to realise that all plants take a year or two to find their feet before there is any sign of growth above ground.  As spring sprung, the creeping buttercups threatened to swamp the knee-high stick which was the only evidence of our new fig tree.

A single leaf pushed out of the top of the stem and then unfurled.  Alas, the sole leaf looked remarkably similar to that of a healthy buttercup and I carelessly strimmed the top off my lovely new tree.  A disaster?  Well, for the first month or so it seemed likely, but then all that time putting down good roots paid off and two new stems pushed their way out of the ground and by the end of the year had put on some really good growth, and better still, we now had a multi-stemmed plant.

The following spring I took a lot more care and hand weeded around the stems, but could do nothing about a late frost which blackened the fresh growth which shrivelled and dropped off.  Poor plant was really having a tough time!  Last year it just grew q little.  A very little.

This year has been much better - no frosts, snow or garden maintenance issues, and the first two little green nodules appeared in the early spring just as the glossy leaves unfurled and then slowly swelled into proper fig-sized bits of fruit.  After almost daily fondling, stroking and caressing the skin, I could tell the moment when the fruit became soft to the touch, the golden colour blushed with red.  It must be ripe?

The fig passed the lift-and-pick test and smelled distinctly figgy.  The final taste test loomed.

Well, the next one - the other one - must be left longer as this was a distinctly sour and unripe example of what should have been sugary sweet unctuousness.  Patience.

And a few days later fig number two passed the lift and pick test and as the ants were showing a lot of interest in the fruit it was going to have to be harvested.  Much better colour, too.

And the taste?  Well, very sweet and figgy, although the stem was trill on the sour side.  Patience.

The second batch are but little green nuggets right now, but come the autumn I will wait until they reach perfection.  Or the wasps get there first!