Figs have always had a special place in our family. They are one of those fruits (yes, it’s a fruit) that appear in the grocery for a couple of times each year during “fig season,” and if you miss those few precious weeks, you’re out of luck until the next year. If they sit too long on your counter, they’ll turn into spoiled mush before you get to enjoy their sweetness. You’ve got to act fast with figs, both to buy and to consume them.
My wife absolutely loves figs, so when I saw a fig sapling at the Home Depot one day, I purchased it on a whim. I planted it in a pot and prayed and watered. It didn’t do much of anything over the first year except grow leaves and then lose them over the winter. In fact, I thought it was probably dead until the new leaves started popping up again in the springtime.
It wasn’t until its second year of life when it produced a half dozen tiny little figs that were more bitter than sweet.
Now, on its fourth year of life and after being planted in the soil for the last year, it’s sprung beautifully to life. Its branches are so bursting with huge leaves and figs that we are supporting them with ties.
Here is a picture of the first fig of the season! Each year the figs seem to get bigger, sweeter, and more numerous.
I seem to remember that this is from an Elephant fig tree, but I’m not 100% certain. The leaves on the fig tree certainly are elephantine in size!
The other fig tree on our property that came with the house is a bigger mystery still, and I have a lot to say about that ugly duckling of a tree.
Everyone loves a good mystery, right? Here is the other fig tree, below.
I’ll do some sleuthing online, and if you have a suggestion about the name of this type of fig tree based on the fig picture, please do post down below!
— TDD
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