Fall Figs

[mountainfigs]

After a weekend away, back to picking fall figs:
bottom left: Late Bordeaux: VDB & Negronne
bottom right: Mt Etna: various
top right: Brooklyn White
top left, clockwise: Calverte, RDB, Improved Celeste, Aldo (Palermo Red)

More of all the above continue to come on, especially Mt Etna, followed by Brooklyn White and RDB, also Late Bordeaux and Palermo Red. A number of other cultivars have unripe figs on them that I doubt will ripen.

The two smaller Brooklyn White's pictured are from an in-ground bush. Several of the Mt Etna figs pictured are in-grounders. The rest from pots.

[jmaler]

Yummy time.

[mountainfigs]

Sort of. All went to neighbors. One little girl ate 6 figs, saying she had to try each kind before her mother told her to save the rest until after dinner. No flavor report but I've had a bunch of other Mt Etnas and they are sweet and jammy good. Has been warm here before the coming cold.

[COGardener]

Is this the last hoorah Tony or do you still have some to look forward to? Either way, I bet they were great!

[mountainfigs]

I think they were in very good shape flavor-wise, though the Mt Etnas looked a little light on the outside. All went to neighbors but I did get an RDB and Palermo Red and bunch of Mt Etnas for myself otherwise - all jammy good. Left a bunch of Mt Etnas ripe on trees, high enough the critters don't bother them, and plenty more Mt Etnas in particular to come. They will ripen all week until the hammer drops Saturday morning to freezing or near it. What survives will continue to ripen I hope through next week in warmer temps. Getting a bunch more this year than last year in October. Trees are older.

I can't say enough good about the Mt Etnas and Brooklyn White, the Late Bordeauxs and Ronde de Bordeaux. These 4 basic types (4 cultivars in my opinion, going by many names) provide my earliest figs and latest figs and many in between. All good, all the way through. This year they provided my best brebas (Late Bordeauxs and Brooklyn White) and my best in ground production (Mt Etnas and Brooklyn White). And I would be very hard pressed to tell you which taste I like better.

[mountainfigs]

Restaurant Figs -- probably worth a thread of its own but don't want to start a new one. I would consider "strong skin" figs or "strong form" figs to be "restaurant figs," for all the reasons I listed in another thread. With strong form figs:

• Its strength keeps it smooth.
• Its strength keeps the fig's shape.
• Its strength keeps its texture, its firm feel.
• Its strength keeps its look, its solid color, blemish-free.

Strong form figs are more uniformly ornamental and less susceptible to blemish and asymmetry, more visually appealing, also more durable while remaining very tender, delicate, fragile; therefore the type of figs that restaurants would most like to receive, store, prepare, serve. Or maybe one could differentiate between "country" restaurants and "city" restaurants, country figs and city figs.

The Bordeauxs and Lattarulla and Palermo Red and Calverte and Madeira/Preto, etc, could be thought of as restaurant figs or city restaurant figs, while the more rustic Mt Etnas and Brooklyn White and Celeste and O'Rourke and Hunt could be thought of as orchard figs or country restaurant figs.

Figs like Improved Celeste and LSU Purple and maybe Champagne could be thought of as figs that straddle the line between country and city, orchard and restaurant figs, depending on how they come off the tree on any particular day.

Interesting that two of the less strong form figs, Mt Etna and Brooklyn White, come back from total top kill in ground to fruit apparently better than any other cultivars (at least in my experience), as if they sacrifice devoting energy to fruit comeliness and strong fruit form in favor of devoting it to fruit productivity in face of cold and top kill.