Thursday, May 21, 2015

Black Greek - breba and main crop figs

The small Black Greek fig tree growing in the gravel growbed in our aquaponics tunnel has recently produced a couple of figs, 1 breba and 1 main crop.

The upside is that they were huge and juicy with good flavor; the downside is that they split badly and were a bit watery.  The splitting is tough to judge yet, though, since these two figs were low enough that they rested on the ground, which puts a splitting stress on the sides of the figs as gravity tries to flatten them out.

Despite the splitting, there was no souring.  The breba, which was still a bit underripe when I picked it, had a bit of a cavity and probably would have soured if I had let it fully ripen on the tree, but the main crop fig was solid throughout, so I think the main crop figs will do a good job of avoiding spoiling by denying entry to insects and moist air.  If the figs higher up off the ground can hang in the tree long enough to lose some of their water and concentrate their flavors, this could prove to be an amazing fig variety.

Here's the little Black Greek tree:



Black Greek breba fig (109 grams):




Black Greek main crop fig, visible in the tree pic above, showing its split eye (70 grams):