S emailed me the other day offering figs in exchange for the bag of quinces I gave him last autumn. Quinces? I'd forgotten I'd given him any. My mother planted a quince tree years ago before she found quinces not to be to her liking so we have a quince bonanza in October. Meanwhile S lives in a house courtesy of his employer that comes with a mature fig tree on a south facing wall, so has a fig bonanza in August. And you thought the UK was a cold, dark and wet place unable to grow these exotic fruit!
Speaking of fruit, the wild plum tree by the railway is covered in 'em. I'd like to think some traveler long ago flung a plum stone from a passing express which germinated and grew into the present slightly rambling hedgerow tree. Right now they're still a tiny bit sour, but in a week or two they'll be sweet and juicy and I'll probably give myself diarrhoea by eating too many at lunchtime.
I
like this time of year!
Figs, now eating too many of them will give you the runs, I know because they are irresistible. Sadly I cant get them to fruit well this far north so have to fly to the south of France for fig season whenever I can. There they can get over wintered buds fruit as early as May / June.
ReplyDeleteCaroline xxx
Enjoy your figs :) And the plums (more to my liking...)
ReplyDeleteStace
As we live in the Southern part of Georgia, the figs in our area have ripened and are now history, but we were given 10 lbs and we canned them, wonderful. There is a pear tree not too far from us on the University campus that is pretty much ignored, so we pick as many as we can and put them up, as jelly or we add ginger and chilies for a relish. Which turns out is good when spread on chicken breasts.
ReplyDeleteOf course we have a strawberry and blackberry field that we buy fruit from and blueberries and grape. But the figs we canned were very good.
I would love to have fig tree! With the hot humid summers we have, I'm sure they would do well here. Funny, but with all the hundreds of trees I have on my 4 1/4 acres, the only edible fruit bearing trees I have are a few hickory nut trees around the house, and one persimmon tree down by the pond. I used to have two persimmon trees, but beavers took one down to use in building their lodge.
ReplyDeleteMelissa XX
oh, how i love figs!!!
ReplyDeletejenny, i saw this post secret from a while back and thought of you.
Weird, that last comment went in the spam folder! Seems there is hope for tall girls then :)
ReplyDeleteEveryone seems to be able to grow tastier fruit than us. Persimmons indeed!
The fig tree in question is both long-established and very sheltered. Unusually it manages to overwinter some of the fruit too.
Never mind, in all this rain we grow some mean cabbages...
Wow, I never would have believed that figs would grow anywhere in the UK. I actually have several on my property and the fruit just drops. Never even tried one. They were there when we moved there. Perhaps I should sample one?
ReplyDeleteThey're easy to grow here, very difficult to get fruit to full term. There's a full-size mature tree up the road from here that's covered in fruit in early summer, but sadly they all drop off before they're fully formed.
ReplyDelete