Figs

[ardcarp]

The rather large fig tree in our garden has good and not-so-good years. This is a bumper crop year, so finding things to do with them (apart from eating them off the tree....delicious, but to be done in moderation ) is challenging. Shelves already groaning with jam. Anyone sharing the fig bonanza? Any suggestions??

[Serial_Apologist]

No bonanza - not even a single fruit from our little fig shrub. It had come installed in a container/planter three years ago. Soon afterwards losing all its leaves I asked the gardener to plant it out - which he did, on a south-facing border, where according to advice I've read should have been OK, figs being plants which like warmth and exposure. One year on it has almost lost all its leaves once more, and is now only growing small misshapen ones, without the plant growing in dimension at all or producing new shoots, let along fruiting. I have twice tried watering. I can't find any online advice from the usual sources, which all suggest we should just have left it in its planter.

[gradus]

We've had loads too but much larger than usual presumably because of the rain. Fig Chutney is one possibility if jam has outstayed its welcome and if you have a suitable place maybe try drying them?

[Belgrove]

An unlikely salad comprising sliced figs, cooked green beans, scattered with toasted flaked almonds for a bit of crunch; with a dressing of date molasses, oil and wine vinegar, is quite addictive.

[ardcarp]

Thanks Gradus. Yes we do chutney too.

Belgrove's

An unlikely salad comprising sliced figs, cooked green beans, scattered with toasted flaked almonds for a bit of crunch; with a dressing of date molasses, oil and wine vinegar, is quite addictive.

sounds yummy! We do have sliced fig with salad (surprisingly good) but haven't tried your exotica. Must try to round up ingredients. Where do you get date molasses? Or do you make it?

Sorry to hear about your un-fig experience SA. I take no credit for our much-loved fig tree. It was well established growing against a S-facing stone wall when we bought the house over 40 years ago. It's obviously been around for ages, and always has masses of branches and leaves. (I think they do like their roots restricted. eg by a wall.) The good fruiting years obviously depend on the vagaries of our climate....the UK being a bit North of its ideal range.

[teamsaint]

Going to be a good crop from ours this year, but there won’t be enough for doing more than eating them as they are, since it isn’t that big.Taking a while to ripen though.

[alywin]

Never eat figs, even if you've picked them with your own fair hand - you never know whether someone may have been injecting poison into them (sorry, just been watching the rerun of I, Claudius on BBC4!) :)

Seriously, though, they should make good salads, maybe with some spinach or other dark leaves and some sort of syrupy dressing? Just don't eat too many, of course.

[Pulcinella]

Here's a Great British Bake Off recipe for fig rolls.

https://thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk/recipes/all/paul-hollywood-fig-rolls/

[french frank]

Seriously, though, they should make good salads

Yes, indeed. In fact in this country the semi-savoury recipe might be best. I can only speak of my personal experience, but I've never tasted a fresh fig in this country, off the tree or shop-bought, which tasted as a fig should - and does in the Mediterranean countries - full, warm and syrupy.

[Bryn]

Yes, indeed. In fact in this country the semi-savoury recipe might be best. I can only speak of my personal experience, but I've never tasted a fresh fig in this country, off the tree or shop-bought, which tasted as a fig should - and does in the Mediterranean countries - full, warm and syrupy.

The fruit on the one fig tree in the local park here never get close to maturing to ripeness.

[ardcarp]

but I've never tasted a fresh fig in this country, off the tree or shop-bought, which tasted as a fig should - and does in the Mediterranean countries - full, warm and syrupy.

Ours are just so....albeit a long way from the Med. But you have to get them when they are almost bursting and brown with ripeness. It's a bit of a race to get them before the birds do. Blackbirds seem to know when they're at peak ripeness!

[french frank]

Ours are just so....albeit a long way from the Med. But you have to get them when they are almost bursting and brown with ripeness. It's a bit of a race to get them before the birds do. Blackbirds seem to know when they're at peak ripeness!

If you have good-tasting fruit from your own tree you're lucky. Obviously they have to be picked before they reach that stage for sale in shops, and perhaps it's just that they don't ripen so well then?

[oddoneout]

Figs are extraordinary plants - their relationship with wasps that pollinate them( except for the ones that don't need pollinating) their different cropping patterns, the fact that what we eat isn't technically a fruit... There are hundreds of different varieties only some of which are suitable for climates such as ours, and even then there are variations as some will only do well under glass(where some will give 2 crops a year) others can crop outside given a suitable site. We have a large fig tree at work, which is of some age as a photo from 1974 shows it at much the same size as now. I think it is a Brunswick, the "fruit" is large and pear shaped, and it ripens well. Getting to eat them depends on whether they are growing low enough and whether the (ordinary)wasps have got there first - they eviscerate them and leave blackened skins hanging on the branches looking a bit like roosting bats. Birds don't go for them and the wasp interest is often the first sign of full ripeness. One of those, sunwarmed and falling apart in my hand, oozing sweetness and flavour is a treat. If they are picked just before full ripeness that will soften, but judging the point at which they will continue ripening is not easy, and can make for disappointment.

[ardcarp]

There seems to be a mystery about whether figs grown in the uk are fig-wasp pollinated or not. One article I read (given the current forum interest!) says that only parthenogenic figs grow in the uk.

However this seems to say the opposite: https://www.oddbox.co.uk/blog/are-th...figs-are-grown

I've occasionally teased vegetarians about fig-eating. Some are horrified, others disbelieving.

[oddoneout]

There seems to be a mystery about whether figs grown in the uk are fig-wasp pollinated or not. One article I read (given the current forum interest!) says that only parthenogenic figs grow in the uk.

However this seems to say the opposite: https://www.oddbox.co.uk/blog/are-th...figs-are-grown

I've occasionally teased vegetarians about fig-eating. Some are horrified, others disbelieving.

That article is somewhat misleading as it doesn't clarify that it is talking about figs grown elsewhere, in places where wasps do(or may) pollinate. The company is a vegbox type operation(although with a twist) so the origin and therefore type of fig that might end up in a delivery will vary.There was, and I think continues to be, a debate about whether vegans(not so much vegetarians) can eat figs because of the possibility that wasps, or parts thereof, might be in the fig and therefore consumed. The rebuttal is that the bits that may be left are digested and absorbed into the fruit by enzymes and so don't exist as animal parts. In any case commercially produced figs may be of kinds that don't involve wasps in the first place.

Of the four most important fig varieties produced in California, the Mission, Adriatic, and Kadota, which are considered to be of the common type, are characterized by being completely parthenocarpic. On the other hand, the Calimyrna, the leading drying variety in the state, is of the Smyrna type, and exhibits the typical characteristics for this group by being almost completely non-parthenocarpic.

from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art...00263-0054.pdf
and I think one can safely assume that wasps are not involved in this country either. Of course, whether climate change alters that is another matter...