Figs

 If you've read my blog for any amount of time, especially when we were in Texas, you know how much I love figs. We always had fig trees when I was growing up in Louisiana. My dad planted them; my grandparents had huge ones. I never dreamed there would a life without figs . . til I moved to Kentucky and people acted like I was looking for beachfront property when I asked about figs. 

Then . . years later we moved to Texas and planted fig trees. One turned out to be a giant. 

You can imagine how many figs that tree produced. We gave away figs, I made jam, preserves, freeze dried figs and the first freeze would come and that tree was still covered in figs.

Then . . we moved back to Missouri where figs seem to be hard to find. In late summer, 2023 I was wandering around the garden center in Lowe's and found fig trees for sale. I googled the type and the info convinced me they would grow here. Vince came to retrieve me from the garden center (he had been shopping inside the store) and I told him what I had found. We bought three of these trees.

Not as big as the Texas fig tree but they have grown quite a bit. See the okra encroaching on the fig tree's space?  :)  I'm surprised that within a couple of miles of us, I've seen okra growing in three other gardens.

There's a second tree and there's a third one out there too.

Last spring or early summer, the tree by the okra had three figs on it. I waited and watched and squeezed to see if they were getting soft. Nope, hard as a rock. They never got big. They never got ripe. They never did anything. I wasn't too upset because they had barely been in the ground a year and we had several nights with temps into the -20's so I was happy they were alive.

This year, same tree . . three figs. They sat there and did nothing but about July, there were more figs. Then a second tree had figs but none of them showed any signs of getting larger or getting ripe.

About a month ago, I told Vince . . if those three fig trees don't produce something this year, I want to cut them down because seeing them and watering them frustrates me! We wouldn't have done it but I was pretty frustrated that they would grow figs and never get ripe.

I've been busy with putting up okra and basil and tomatoes for Cooper for the winter, and apples and pears and hadn't paid any attention to the fig trees. Today I walked past the one that had the three figs last year and there were three ripe figs!

I went back into the house to get Vince to come out and see them. I grabbed my camera. There were two small figs and one really big fig. I told Vince to get the big fig and I would take the two small ones. We each ate one and then I remembered I wanted to take a picture so . . here's one of the small ones.

You can tell it's been ripe for a while. I'm glad the birds didn't find it before I did. I need to pay closer attention. There may be others that will get ripe before we have a freeze. We should have at least two weeks before a freeze . . maybe three.

At least they produced and I'm betting next year they will produce a lot more!

They made me very, very happy!