Fresh fig

Whether I am listing a home or selling one, I always point out the value of a fig tree when there is one in the yard.  Most of my clients just look at me and shake their heads.  Few appreciate that they have a tree that will be filled with the fruit of the Gods by mid-summer.

One of my clients has the most prolific fig tree I have ever seen.  Free of birds and squirrels,  just popping with crop after crop of big brown figs. Figs that no one particularly wanted.  You eat a few fresh ones off the tree and move on.  But I was raised on figs.  My grandmother made whole fig preserves.  My mom, who wasn’t that fantastic of a cook anyway, made whole fig preserves.  There were scores of pounds of figs being unused; so Katy and I took up a new hobby – canning.

The same client with the fig tree also has a limb breakingly prolific pear tree, so we have been canning the heck out of figs and pears.  Following is a picture chronicle of our developing skills. Continue reading →