All fruit is really delicious if it's ripe, but I was finding myself very grateful this morning as I was out thinning the peaches off the loaded peach tree.  It will self-prune itself if I don't thin.  The branches get so heavy!  Snap!!

FIGS DONT NEED to be THINNED!!  YAY!

This thinning is making me crazy! Bees are gone from the loaded peach, but they are still buzzing around the apricot and plum. Every day I go out twice to thin, and am amazed at what I've missed!!

Got some bird scare tape on Ebay with free shipping.  Guess I'll give that a whirl.  All the work you put into getting perfectly ripe fruit, requires some effort against critters.

Suzi

Unless one is blessed with the perfect climate and soil no fruit is easy. I'm talking about best of breed not just growing any eating quality. To get the very best takes the best culture. In many places that's impossible. I'll probably never grow the perfect fig, nectarine, or apricot. But I've gone to great lengths to try. For figs I lack the wasp and can't grow outside here. So it's potted culture for figs and I don't think that can match in-ground in the right climate.

I do think figs are easier than stone fruit to get near best eating quality. Mainly because figs will dry down on the bush and stone fruit require very careful water management.

My 7 peach trees and 2 plums don't need thinned yet but it is coming.  Another 2 weeks and we will be past our freeze date then that boring chore starts.

Hi DesertDance,
So lets see the result of that match Figs against stone fruit:

Plums : One tree - each year between 5 and 40 fruits --> ridiculous . It is the last year that it gets me crazy. If this year he is so disappointing ... The saw will have it .

Cherry tree : Early fruiting strain : just a must do here ...

Nectarines : one tree that I bought but the fruits are pinpongball sized - good crop - but when you remove the core ... not that much left to eat - perhaps last year and the saw ...

Peaches : 2013 they were crawling with the fruits - incredible I had to give peaches to everyone I knew . I had 5 trees, already removed one - this was planned since the beginning - it is a technique when creating an orchard ; you plant twice the number of trees and remove the excess 5 years after starting. Peaches are hard to make jam of them.

Pear trees : One amazing producing each year, the second is new. I'm looking for places to put more pear trees :) - I have access to 4-8 strains - here I can get the cheaper for 10€ - almost the same for cheap fig trees.

Fig trees : Well they are like playing poker and February 2012 was a killer here . So they recovered by now and grew like fig trees can do, so 2014 should... fingers crossed ...

One more thing, cherries here are pricey : 5 to 8 € per kilogram