When I was on Ocracoke, I came across tons of figs. Several different varieties are grown all over the island; most of which are on private land. I never had eaten figs before ... at least figs which were not dehydrated. However once I tried them I was smitten.
Since I bought my house, I've toyed with the idea of having some sort of fruit trees on the property. However it seems to me (at least) that your standard fruit trees (apple and peach for example) are very labor intensive. I even considered a lemon tree, but what am I going to do with an overabundance of lemons?
At any rate, wanting to do something slightly out of the ordinary, I decided I'd try my hand at growing fig trees. I don't know anyone else who does it, and it seems like it might be fun. Well, I was at the local farmers market and I stopped in at one of the nurseries and they had the Brown Turkey variety of fig tree there. It's described as follows:
Texas Everbearing (Brown Turkey). Texas Everbearing is a medium-sized fig adapted to central and east Texas. It is the most common variety in central Texas. The tree is vigorous, very large and productive. The early crop ripens in May; the main crop ripens in late June and continues to ripen into August. The fruit has a short, plump stem and moderately closed eye which reduces fruit souring on the tree. The fruit is nearly seedless and has a mild sweet flavor. Early crop fruit is very large, sometimes 2 inches in diameter.So, I bought one (pictured above). I'll probably transplant it sometime this week and maybe by next year I'll have a sizeable crop.
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Bonus: The latex from fig trees includes the handy-dandy protease ficin, which supposedly can be used to make cheese.
We inherited two desert king fig trees from the house's previous owner. The fruit is incredible - I bought a whole cookbook dedicated to figs to help me use them all up, with roasted halibut/figs/red onions/orange peel being a particular favourite. We did a fairly drastic trim last year though, and barely have any figs this year. I am Not Happy about this. I hope your tree grows well!
Epicanis: interesting. I had no idea about that.
Cath: Ah, cooking with figs. I have lots of recipes in my cookbooks that call for figs ... none of them have ever been tried. That will be the case no longer! The halibut recipe sounds especially yummy.
I also hope my tree grows well. As a side bonus, after telling my parents that I bought a fig tree, I found out that my grandpa (who I was especially close to throughout my life, and is still my hero, inspiration, and role model) used to grow them in his backyard in Brooklyn when my mom was a child. Go figure!
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