They planted explosives to blow open holes to plant trees in the old days of Fresno......

http://valleypbs.org/valleysgold/?p=488

Interesting... Are you close to that location? What varieties do they grow there?

About 40 miles away, I would believe they grew Black Missions and maybe Kadotas.......I just recently went to Fig Garden Area and found a small abandoned orchard of about 16 fig trees.....the leaves looked like Black Missions. It had a lot of construction equipment there so it may not be there next year.  The orchards use to be on Van Ness Blvd between Ashlan and Bullard......if your curious you can Google the street view.

sad to hear nice trees to get destroyed for construction.

Even though a lot will be knocked down, there are sporadic trees on the sides of houses....so the variety won't disappear....I just have to knock on doors if I see anything interesting.....I have gotten a few cuttings that were accessible by the street.

I enjoyed watching that, thanks.

Great video.  Nice to see these folks take such pride in figs.

Armando...thanks for sharing that video on the history of growing figs in California...I always enjoy seeing clips and photos of previous generations of growers.

Armando i was surprised to hear about the explosives and how much dynamite was used in the process.
Thanks.

Thank you Armando.

Thanks for posting this Armando.  It was fun and informative to watch.

By the way, anyone else notice that commercial figs are harvested too early.  They never really look ripe.

Your Welcome, Stay Safe today....those darn trick or treaters stole a cactus from me last year....LOL

Hi Armando
check out this two guys at the start of the clip-

Thanks Eli....seems interesting and funny...will watch it tonite......Thanks for posting this.....They say Israel is the Land of milk and honey...how about figs.

Great video, I enjoyed it greatly.

Oh heavens to betsy, I gotta drag myself away from this Greedy Italian movie but it is very very hard to do!

Armando,
Thanks for the video link, that was very interesting.    I know people who, long ago, thought they would be gentlemen almond orchard owners up that way, only find they needed to dynamite each planting hole.   Surprise, surprise..!   I guess vast tracts have a layer of subsurface hardpan structure, which needs fracturing.   We have some of the same in parts of San Diego…..local name is “caliche”!

Elin,
Your link to Two Greedy Italians is a hoot and new to me.  Thanks, I’m still laughing as I browse through the many older episodes posted on YouTube……….. :-)

Thanks Jack (Bosco)....yeah I love those Two Greedy Italian guys.......hopefully I will get a camcorder and make a spoof of it.....they are hilarious....we need to make a thread of only fig videos...so when we finish babying our trees we can look through the videos...

Great Video. Thank You

Great Videos, Thanks Armando and Eli. Anyway I can get a piece of Fresno History and send me a few cuttings, I don't care if its a Black Mission its Fig History, will send you PM.

Bumping this up: 2 Great Videos the PBS and the Two Greedy Italians.  There might be some people shut in due to the weather, like me...its been raining all day.