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.
My basil has been nipped by an early frost, my feral pumpkin vine has had it's tips cut back but has a huge big Queensland Blue pumpkin on it so the frost will sweeten that up
Now it's just a matter of time before the real cold sets in, ubt at least I got some figs.
i've never even seen a fresh fig before. fig newton cookies are the only way i've ever had them. what are they like? how would you eat one?
mm!
we might finally get more rain this coming week, i'll believe it when i see it hit the ground... repeated frosts, but the strawberries are trying to bloom anyways. peas planted early are doing fine, same with onion seeds that sprouted. turnips seedlings mostly knocked out, will replant in a month. should get out and plant more peas since they are doing ok. maybe they can grow and mostly finish by the time i want the space for planting something else. garlic remains completely happy and doing well. 27F doesn't seem to even give it pause.
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.
whereabouts are you (roughly :) )? how cold does it usually get there at the worst and is it for long? 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.
songbird
We have been bottling pears, some apples and quinces. Must go and collect feijoas tomorrow.
Liquid ambers are at yellow, mullbery almost bare.
We have apples, all the citrus and medlars to go.
David
Well I have no idea what a 'fig newton' might be so I guess we are both in the dark about some thing figgy.
what are they like?
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.
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.
Sounds quite promising for a good Spring for you.
South Eastern NSW and it gets cold from late April to about the beginning of October..
here
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.
It sounds like you are up a hill. How far from Cooma?
D
Up a tableland at least :-)) About an hour's drive away.
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 :) ).
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.
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.
...
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. :)
sounds like you have a bit warmer and longer season by about a month.
frozen pipes are no fun...
what did you plant this season and how did it go?
songbird
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...
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.
and that will freeze the pipes. It
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.
yes, there have been some excellent documentary shows on PBS (Public Broadcasting System for non-USoAians) about figs. still i can daydream... :)
matured ovary tissue, the fig's [...] **
songbird
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
Vegitarian cheese is made using rennet from fig or pear sap.
Speaking of ovaries, you have never seen a fig eaten until you have watched the movie version of "Women in love".
We get to see some of PBS here in Oz bird - the news hour with Jim Lehrer IIRC.
The cheese it makes is superb. It was mentioned in Homer's Iliad so it's a very ancient use of figs.
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.
That's interesting. Pears are a genus, whereas tomatoes are a species. Good question Farm1.
I can't claim that it was as intentionally thought out as your description would suggest :-))
I have however long been aware that many people use common names that don't conjure up the same plant in my mind as they have in their mind. In the flesh it's a lot easier to sort out these confusions but less so on newsgroups.
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