Fig obsession
Once
a week, all through September, I've dreamed about figs. Black
ones, brown ones, plump and enticing, and always just out of reach.
The source of my
obsession: our Chicago
Hardy fig has been
ripening up about a fig a day. I wait until we have three to
five, then cut them in half and roast them the easiest way possible ---
in the toaster oven under the highest heat until the juices puddle on
the tray and hit hard ball candy stage.
I've read that a mature
fig tree will bear thirty pounds of fruit per year, but I find that
hard to believe. At twenty figs to a pound, we'd have to multiply
our yields by 15 to become average. Even though older trees bear
more, here at the cold hardiness limit of the fig range, I can't expect
my tree to grow to true fig size.
While I yearn for figs
in my sleep, Mark gets practical. Having cleared the gully of
brambles this summer, he envisions that prime planting ground turning
into a fig paradise. One day, he brings Celeste home to begin Figlandia.
Meanwhile, I've started
a kill mulch at the shady end of the front garden to create a perennial
propagation bed. Brian has offered to trade scionwood with me, so
I'll be trying to root hardwood cuttings this winter and soon we'll be
trying some more varieties.
This post is your
warning --- you'll probably be hearing far more than you'd want about
figs for the next little while (especially this week at lunchtime). I can't help it. Figs
appear to be the fruits of my dreams.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Now I'm going to be walking around singing "figlandia" to myself all day.
curses
Anna, you probably know this, but the one thing to remember about planting figs in-ground is that they don't like wet feet.
This was my first year getting home-grown figs -- I never knew how great fresh figs could be! Some even have a strawberry-like flavor.
It's easy to see how people become fig-nuts -- check out the figs for fun and garden web forums, there's folks out there who collect dozens, even hundreds of varieties.
C, I'm so outside popular culture, I don't really even know where the "landia" ending came from. (Although now that you say it's a song, I feel like I know the tune? Disturbing.
) Want to clue me in?
BeninMA --- I was reading that about wet feet while researching hardiness. It sounds like raised beds are definitely the way to go in our swampy soil.
What kind(s) of homegrown figs did you grow this year? I totally agree --- it makes much more sense now why people are so obsessed.
Ha! You and me both are way outside of mainstream culture. There was no reference to anything but the word itself...
Me singing it to myself is a mythical named place that now exists in my head, thanks to you, and besides, the word has just so much rhyme to it...
I'm thinking it would make an excellent children's book series about homesteading...
C, I agree about the children's book. I love young adult books and wish there were some about homesteading, but not quite enough to write one....
Patti --- We're in zone 6, so a bit colder, but maybe we'll get lucky! That sounds like a great childhood memory.
Anonymous --- That sounds delicious! We almost had enough yesterday to do something other than roast them, but not quite. I'm thinking I'd want to make a fig tart first, though.
I am late with this comment because I went to a farm where they have a fig tree in front of their stand. Dale picks figs as they ripen and they eat them fresh and they dry a bunch for winter. His tree is around 5 years old and it stands about 9' to 10' tall. I looked at how many figs he had on his tree. There were lots of them! Lots!
I did what you said and checked for figs that hang down. Those were yellow and looked softer then the green figs. So I suppose the yellow ones are the ripe one. You can't get to the figs because he has a netting over the tree to keep the birds from eatting his figs.
I have 2 fig trees that I got in the past 15 months and I take care to protect them from the elements and pray to get healthy and fruitfull figs of these trees in the next 3 or 4 years.