Farm1 wrote:
songbird wrote:
Farm1 wrote:
My figs are ripe. Not enough to make jam or do anything substantial with
this main crop, but enough to enjoy fresh figs and ice cream. Delish.

i've never even seen a fresh fig before.
fig newton cookies are the only way i've
ever had them.

Well I have no idea what a 'fig newton' might be so I guess we are both in
the dark about some thing figgy.

haha, (i thought i answered this one already but
i don't see a reply posted, so if i repeat myself
that is why ).

it's fig filling inside a sort of crumbly outer
vanilla cookie. yet another mass extruded product
of some mad genius. now they come in many flavors.
i do not buy many cookies these days (we bake them
by the hundreds), but once in a while for something
different we'll get some of these. they come in
many flavors and are sold at the dollar stores
by the slab. we prefer the plain or original
flavor as at least that has some resemblance to
reality (or so we hope ).


what are they like?
how would you eat one?

That is a hard question but I'll try to answer. Fresh figs are much softer
and squishier than dried figs - about as soft as a ripe avocado. They have
a fig flavour but not as strong as dried figs. They have lots of the tiny
seeds but the seeds aren't as noticeable as in they are in the dried figs.

that sounds similar to a kiwi or strawberry.
i don't find the seeds in fig filling to be
bothersome. i do dislike seeds in raspberry
or blackberry jams, but seedless in either of
those is not common.


To me they are a real luxury food because it is almost impossible to buy
ripe figs since they don't travel well. You can eat then fresh just as you
would any fruit, you can eat them with a mild cheese on a fruit platter
along with a scattering of fresh dates, you can make them into jam (and fig
jam is one of THE best jams IMO). As to trying to describe the flavour of
than it being figgy, I can't give yo a clue because it is in a class of its
owm. We ate our fresh ones jsut sliced and on top of vanilla ice cream.

i'm just scouting for my possible wishlist
someday fruit tree space that i keep ignoring
because i don't really want yet more projects
do i really like no, i don't, but fig filling
would be really good and ... ohnoes!

it sounds great and i hope some day to try
a fresh fig.


....
flowers doing ok, lack of rain means i've done a
little watering i normally wouldn't do, and frosts
have knocked down some of the earlier daffodils and
tulips, but the rest are looking better now and it
should be ok for a week. no heavy frosts in the
forecast. i might be able to get some decent pictures
if i can get out today.

Sounds quite promising for a good Spring for you.

the weather is gradually getting warmer and the
frosts/freezes not quite so harsh. still i won't
be setting out any expensive plants for another
month.

the wind shredded quite a few flowers. frost
got some more, but there are still some for the
photo gallery. a good reason to plant extra.
and we had someone come by and pick a few dozen
and Ma has given hundreds away to another friend.

i'm getting a lot of weeding done this year with
it being dry to the point where the clay was cracking.
recent rains have fixed that. i'll keep at it as
it looks nice and i like having fewer weed seeds
in the harvested green manure.

strawberries are blooming a lot more now. even
the wild plants are loaded with blooms.

rest of seedlings ok for the most part. still
looking forwards to seeing the chard poke up and
have already had a friend say they would take any
extra. it is nice to be loved.


whereabouts are you (roughly )? how cold does it
usually get there at the worst and is it for long?

South Eastern NSW and it gets cold from late April to about the beginning of
October..

sounds like you have a bit warmer and longer
season by about a month.


here
in mid-michigan it gets down to maybe -5 - -20F and
that might last a few weeks or a month some years. the
past few seasons have been quite mild.

Here it can gets down to about -9C and that will freeze the pipes. It
regulalry gets downt o -4C over winter. Not cold by your standards, but
cold by Oz standards.

frozen pipes are no fun...

what did you plant this season and how did it go?


songbird

"songbird" wrote in message
Farm1 wrote:

and that will freeze the pipes. It
regulalry gets downt o -4C over winter. Not cold by your standards, but
cold by Oz standards.

frozen pipes are no fun...

what did you plant this season and how did it go?

Off the top of my head, I can recall: Rocket (aragula), lettuce, basil,
Italian Parsley, Zucchini, beans, French Sorrel, Lebanese cukes, potatoes,
silver beet (chard), coriander, tomatoes. Toms didnt' do all that well and
neither did the eggplants. It just wasn't a hot enough summer. We've had
strawbs and raspberies and blackberries in almost plague proportions and our
asparagus and rhubarb also did well.

In article ,
Derald wrote:

Not sure that figs do well in your climate; they definitely are
warm weather trees. Certain varieties require specific insect species in
order to "fruit".

I've read an elaborate (ie, not happening here) description of basically
bending over and burying a fig tree through the winter to get it through
up this way - presumably potting it and bringing inside would also work
for the folks that actually have a greenhouse.

"Brown turkey" seems to be the variety that's most tolerant of cold (or
most mentioned for this elaborate procedure). But I think it's still
basically a Zone 8 plant unless it's buried and exhumed annually.

I'm trying to move the garden to less work, not more...

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by
Please don't feed the trolls. Killfile and ignore them so they will go away.

"Derald" wrote in message

Fig tree
sap is an irritant

And it's also a natural rennet which I didn't know about until we went to a
celebrity chef' lunch at an Open Garden where the Host and his wife made the
'extras' for the chef including a soft cheese using a fresh cut fig branch.

Farm1 wrote:
Derald wrote:

Fig tree
sap is an irritant

And it's also a natural rennet which I didn't know about until we went to a
celebrity chef' lunch at an Open Garden where the Host and his wife made the
'extras' for the chef including a soft cheese using a fresh cut fig branch.

huh! what that might do to some folks digestive
system could be ... i'm not sure i'd want to test
that out myself.


songbird

"songbird" wrote in message
...
Farm1 wrote:
Derald wrote:

Fig tree
sap is an irritant

And it's also a natural rennet which I didn't know about until we went to
a
celebrity chef' lunch at an Open Garden where the Host and his wife made
the
'extras' for the chef including a soft cheese using a fresh cut fig
branch.

huh! what that might do to some folks digestive
system could be ... i'm not sure i'd want to test
that out myself.

The cheese it makes is superb. It was mentioned in Homer's Iliad so it's a
very ancient use of figs.

Farm1 wrote:
"Derald" wrote:

Fig tree sap is an irritant

And it's also a natural rennet which I didn't know about until we went to a
celebrity chef' lunch at an Open Garden where the Host and his wife made the
'extras' for the chef including a soft cheese using a fresh cut fig branch.

Vegitarian cheese is made using rennet from fig or pear sap.

I've read an elaborate (ie, not happening here) description of basically
bending over and burying a fig tree through the winter to get it through
up this way - presumably potting it and bringing inside would also work
for the folks that actually have a greenhouse. http://www.hbing.info/g.gif

"Doug Freyburger" wrote in message
...
Farm1 wrote:
"Derald" wrote:

Fig tree sap is an irritant

And it's also a natural rennet which I didn't know about until we went to
a
celebrity chef' lunch at an Open Garden where the Host and his wife made
the
'extras' for the chef including a soft cheese using a fresh cut fig
branch.

Vegitarian cheese is made using rennet from fig or pear sap.

Pear sap isn't something I've heard about before. Do you mean common old
domestic fruiting pear?

Farm1 wrote:
"Doug Freyburger" wrote..

Vegitarian cheese is made using rennet from fig or pear sap.

Pear sap isn't something I've heard about before. Do you mean common old
domestic fruiting pear?

I've seen photos of drawing a drop of sap where the pear is picked and
using that for the rennet. I can't tell what type of pear it was by my
memory of the photo. I think a common variety. The tree looked like
the ones that grew in the neighborhood where I was a kid.

Derald wrote:
songbird wrote:

that sounds similar to a kiwi or strawberry.
i don't find the seeds in fig filling to be
bothersome.

More like the former than like the latter. Many, but not all,
resemble pear in shape. When ripe, color may be green, red, "golden",
dark brown, purple, depending on variety; illustrative "poster" he
http://www.fruitlovers.com/FigPoster.html. Fresh figs often have the
same effect on the human alimentary canal as prunes, IYKWIM ;-) Fig tree
sap is an irritant to most folks and produces extreme reactions in some.
Not sure that figs do well in your climate; they definitely are
warm weather trees. Certain varieties require specific insect species in
order to "fruit".

yes, there have been some excellent documentary shows on
PBS (Public Broadcasting System for non-USoAians) about figs.
still i can daydream...


The fig fruit is unique. Unlike most fruit in which the edible structure is matured ovary tissue, the fig's [...] **

** http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/homefruit/fig/fig.html


songbird

"songbird" wrote in message

yes, there have been some excellent documentary shows on
PBS (Public Broadcasting System for non-USoAians)

We get to see some of PBS here in Oz bird - the news hour with Jim Lehrer
IIRC.

Derald wrote:
songbird wrote:


that sounds similar to a kiwi or strawberry.
i don't find the seeds in fig filling to be
bothersome.
More like the former than like the latter. Many, but not all,
resemble pear in shape. When ripe, color may be green, red, "golden",
dark brown, purple, depending on variety; illustrative "poster" he
http://www.fruitlovers.com/FigPoster.html. Fresh figs often have the
same effect on the human alimentary canal as prunes, IYKWIM ;-) Fig
tree sap is an irritant to most folks and produces extreme reactions
in some. Not sure that figs do well in your climate; they definitely
are
warm weather trees. Certain varieties require specific insect species
in order to "fruit".

The fig fruit is unique. Unlike most fruit in which the edible
structure is matured ovary tissue, the fig's edible structure is
actually stem tissue. The fig fruit is an inverted flower with both
the male and female flower parts enclosed in stem tissue. This
structure is known botanically as a syconium. At maturity the
interior of the fig contains only the remains of these flower
structures, including the small gritty structures commonly called
seeds. Actually, these so-called seeds usually are nothing more than
unfertilized ovaries that failed to develop. They impart the
resin-like flavor associated with figs. **

**
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/homefruit/fig/fig.html

Speaking of ovaries, you have never seen a fig eaten until you have watched
the movie version of "Women in love".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3iL8euEvO4

This scene didn't have nearly as many in a quiver as where the protagonists
wrestle nude but some got quite sweaty about it. This was very heady stuff
in 1970.


D