Late August Harvest of Some Really Nice Figs

Alright everybody, this is Ross the Fig Boss. Today we're going to go around the yard and harvest some figs. And you can see actually down here, I've already harvested quite a bit. These are some hardy Chicagos from different trees. Some of them got hit by ants pretty bad. We have some Monaco here. Another different hardy Chicago type here. We have some Hetib, the Argentile, which look really, really good. And actually are blue right now, so that's pretty cool. I've been away for a little bit this weekend. Went down to the Jersey Shore and came back. And so there's a lot of fruits that are ripe. While I was away, it was really warm here. It was warm at the shore. It was even warmer here as we're more inland. And that's just pretty much always the case. And it did actually rain a little bit here. But it was relatively dry. Hey, right now it's super humid. I am like sweating my brains out. I can't believe, cannot believe actually how humid it is right now. Here's a nice little Smith fig. Wow, this looks really good. Well ripened. I know there's another one on here I saw. Oh, here it is. I wanted to take you guys around the yard. We've already done one of these videos where I show you guys a little bit of my harvest that we did earlier in the season. So if you want to see more videos like this, go back. Here's actually some honey right there on my finger from the Smith. Just an incredible fig. It's really an incredible variety. I know I talk a lot about it, but to be honest with you, it's probably going to be the best fig of the day. And that's kind of the goal here. We're going to go around, pick all these figs, taste some of them. Not all of them, but we'll definitely taste some of them. And then make a judgment as to which one is the best fig. We still have a lot of varieties that have yet to even start to ripen. It's the end of August. A lot of our fruits of the later varieties will start ripening. Probably sometime in September. Depends on if they were given a head start or not. Here's actually one that we grafted. This is bologna. I grafted this onto a rootstock here. And it's fruiting like crazy. And I put the graft on early enough in the season. And we're actually going to get these to ripen before frost, which is great. Maybe even some of them after frost, which is okay too. Typically we can still get some decent figs. Here's a Petit Des Argentilles. This just needs a little bit more time. Probably a couple days. It is going to rain tomorrow evening. So we're not going to go crazy picking figs that we don't have to. We will pick figs that are ripe. Or this one here was off the tree. In fact, I found already so far today, I think four figs off of the trees. And they look like nothing had happened. Nothing was wrong with them. Which is pretty rare to find figs in the ground. Well, I wouldn't say rare, but just not... You know, it's pretty unusual for sure. Here's some of my younger potted trees. These are getting established, getting their form right. There's not a ton of firts yet, and that doesn't matter to me. We're getting the form right for next year. And if there is any firts on them, it's going to ripen probably much later in the season. Here is what looks like the first fig that's swelling on this variety. This one is Palmares. So I did have to taste this one last year. And hopefully they're good this year. I know the sunburn really is affecting some of the varieties that got hit by that. Here's a Feather River that looks great. This has been a really nice surprise actually, this fig. It's a lot like a White Triana. But it seems like the hang time is much shorter. And to me, that's incredible. That's just seriously one of the best features of that fig. It's not an Adriatic type. I don't know why people would consider it that. It's more along the lines of an Atriano, White Triana, Canadria type. That has a lighter interior. Very sweet, jelly-like consistency. In fact, super sweet. And those figs are their own little class of figs for sure. Their own little category. And they're, I have to say, really, really good. Oh, looks like we may have lost one over here. Oh, no we didn't. This is still swelling. I was keeping an eye on that. Here's some Risoulette, which turned out to be Black Mission. Here's Monaco. These Monaco figs all are just in terrible condition because of that rain we had at some point here when I was away. I wasn't even away for that long. I was probably away for maybe a day or two. These figs are really causing a problem. And if it was really rainy right now, these figs would actually be attracting all kinds of nasty fruit flies. And they would be infecting all the other figs because of that. So I don't want to have figs like this. And you can even see, I'll show you guys, the damage that's on these figs. And they're not even really that ripe. It's a tasty fig. I promise you that. Quite a tasty fig actually. But it just can't get them right. What I also need to do is go around to these figs and organza bag them because if we're going to get some problems here with these birds, which I'm not actually seeing any bird damage, but we'll see if there is any as we go throughout this video. Here is the first Greece Day St. Jean from this source. It's the unknown European source right here. Beautiful fig. And then right here is actually Brocolette. And you can see actually it's swelling for the first time this year. That isn't a Brava. We actually had some Brava. And now the eye is splitting a bit. So that's not a good sign. Big eye. That's a terrible, terrible sign. But the other Greece Day St. Jean fig I have here on the patio in a container is Loretta. And this Loretta fig actually ripened two figs that were attached to each other. It was one fig. No, it was two figs, but it was on one node. So it was the craziest thing I've ever seen. Actually, I've never seen that before. Got a picture of it, so that's important. Here is some Sister Madeline's Yellow. And this fig looks like it did take some damage from the rain as well. But it probably is very tasty if I had to imagine. These are also ripening relatively quickly. So that's good. And this is a similar category of fig to the Feather River that I was talking about. Now if I come in here and look at this fig. This is Cora Black. This could wait some time. There's no rush to pick Cora Black. It needs some real time to ripen there on the tree. And so I'm going to wait. We've got a lot of figs ripening right now. It's starting to get to that time, it looks like. This is a new one, I think. Bosco Rosso from Nicky, which has got a lot of promise to it. I should net that one. I should definitely put something around it. Because I definitely want to get a good idea of what that fig is about. Simply because it's showing a lot of promise. And I want to make sure that I can evaluate what is on the tree. And it's definitely minimal. So it's important to get this documented while I can. By the way, down here is a fig that is similar to Dotado. Let's see if any of these are ripe. It doesn't look like it. This is Mosquitelle Bronco. Really a nice fig. And I'm hoping it's different from Dotado in a way that makes it better. We'll see. Here is Deponte de Cortiera. I'm not pronouncing that correctly. But this is a Portuguese fig, I think. It doesn't do well here. I find that the eyes are a bit open, the shape is wrong, and the hang time is long. So not a fig for this climate. But we're still going to look at it and evaluate it in this perfectly dry weather. Almost perfectly dry weather. It should be producing really high quality fruit. But I don't know if that's going to be the case, unfortunately. Let's put this down. And let's see what else we have. We did get to taste over here the first of the Castle Tresino from Mario, number 48. Really, really tasty fruit. It doesn't look like any are ripe just yet. We've got Little Ruby that we're going to have to go through here. Pick all the figs off of that. We also have Morro de Caneva we're going to pick from. Ronde Bordeaux we're going to pick from. And I wonder if there's any LSU Puye on here that's ripe. Get a closer look. We harvested our first Texas BA1 and that was incredible. Really, really good. Just like Smith. This Morro de Caneva tree is not ripe. I'll wait until tomorrow. You can pick them now and they're going to be good. But again, why do it now? Here's a dried LSU Tiger. Wow. This looks insanely good. Look at this. It's a shame. LSU Tiger just doesn't have a good name. It's basically a larger Celeste. It performs really well. The eye is a little bit open there. A little bit open maybe on some of these others. It has a lot of the same characteristics of Celeste. It performs so, so well. Again, the dry weather has definitely benefited this. But regardless, it's showing really nice promise this year. More than any other season that I've had it in the ground. In the container, I loved it. In the ground, not so much. I think that has a lot to do with just the fact that the tree has survived the winter. Here is an Azores Dark. It's not exactly ready. I think I have to wait until tomorrow to pick that one. I really wanted to do a hardy Chicago comparison. It's tough getting them all ripe at the same exact time. Side-by-side comparisons are always nice. But again, it's just tough. What else we got here? I'm surprised my Long De Oud is not ready yet. We have some Stallion ready. How about this Condé? Is this thing ready yet? Down here is a fruit that looks like it's going to swell soon. Not yet. A lot of these in-ground trees are much further behind the potted because they have not survived the winter. But the ones that have survived the winter are fruiting really well and are doing much better in terms of production and fruiting at an earlier date. We just have to get them through the winter next year. We will see an insane level of production. I can't get the bag off of this. This Stallion fig, I don't want to pick this too soon. This would really be a mistake if I picked this too soon. I can't tell how ripe it is with the bag on it. These bags, I'm telling you, they're nice because they'll keep the birds out but, boy oh boy, are they almost more of a hassle than they're worth. I think a lot of people will probably agree with that. In a perfect world, there is no birds. Oh, this thing here is stuck, that's why. There we go. And feeling the neck on this, it doesn't seem that dried. But, you know, I'm going to pick it anyway. Could have used more time. This thing has a much longer hang time, I'm noticing. That fig has a much longer hang time than the one, which is also a darker blue colored Celeste. This one, though, has got much darker blue than the one, so far, at least, anyway. So, in terms of color, maybe it has an edge, but that hang time is amazing. Back here, oh, there's more Texas BA1 ripe. This guy here is definitely ripe. I want to do its own separate video, so I don't really want to pick that for this video. We have an LSU huya. Is anything ready yet? This feels really good. This heat has been wonderful. The dry weather has been wonderful. Here's an LSU huya. A little bit of sap, so that's not good, actually. Could have used more time. These are just totally different figs. The LSU huya and the LSU tiger have been totally different. Now that they have survived the winter, it's insane, actually, how different the fruits are. The fruit that forms on the suckers is nowhere near as good as the fruit that forms on last year's growth. Isn't that something interesting? Well, we've got a lot of fruits here, and they're not done. We're not anywhere close to being done, and we're not really picking just to pick. We're picking figs that are ripe. This one here looks like something got to this. It's stuck here in the net. A little bit of water and maybe some bird damage on this little ruby fig. Looks like the slug's got that one. There's more dried up here. This looks pretty good. Let's move over to a different side of the tree. There's some there. We'll let that one hang on the tree. Again, right here. I need a bolt. Definitely need a bolt. Now, this one here is shriveled pretty nicely, so I'm going to pick that. Mosquitoes are everywhere right now. It's getting dark. It's getting late. They're coming out of their mosquito dens to eat me. We've got handfuls of this fruit. I will have handfuls of this fruit after we pick this tree. These nets, man, they're a pain because they like to just get caught in everything. There's a lot of fruit actually in the net. I'm going to have to put these down. There's a lot of fruit ripe on this tree right now because I think it's just been so dry. Although it's not dry now, it's very humid, but these have certainly dried up real quick. This heat does it, really, and then you get the combination of the drier weather. That's just how you get the dried fruits real fast. Let's see. Another one. There's more in there. I can't. This is so difficult, getting inside of this tree with the net on. Here's more. Oh, no. I got caught on my watch. How do we get these out of here? This is turning into a long harvest video. I did not expect to have this many fruits. This is wild, man. Maybe I'll just leave that one. It looks pretty damaged. This one here is totally dried. This is tough. There we go. This one here has got some really nice cork tints to it. This one is probably really well dried. Let's see if we can get to this. Here we go. Oh, no. The net is destroying it. Oh, no. What have I done? This poor little ruby fruit. Well, it tastes alcoholic. It's got some fermentation in there. We're not even going to bother. It's just not worth it. Some fruit flies will have to come get it, I guess. It just is what it is. Here's another one down here, down here. All right, I think we can finally call it on this tree. That's a lot of fruit. Pretty nice, huh? And they're really tasty, too. I mean, Brady does not get enough credit, for sure. I don't think even anybody knows what the heck it is. All right. Moro de Caneba, dried. This one here needs more time. Well, I could pick it now, for sure, but, again, why pick it now? Pick it tomorrow. Some dried Bran de Bordeaux. These are going to be amazing. These are probably going to be the best ones, besides Smith and Hatie de Argentil. It'll be a nice little comparison, that's for sure. These are super ripe. Wow. I am going to be so spoiled right now. You know, these are the days that make a fig season, because, you know, you could have rain. I could have rain the rest of the fig season. It would suck. But I would still feel really grateful that I had all these fruits. These high-quality fruits, not the quantity. Quality. All right, I'm going to have to come back for some of these. Whew. Well, I think I should get myself a plate. Don't you think? Oh, my goodness. It's not even September yet. That's amazing. All right, guys. I'm going to end it right here, and then we're going to bring you right back. I'll set all this crap up for you guys. A lot of setup for this video, but hopefully it'll all be worth it. Be right back.