not sure what to say. it holds lot of promise, and i can taste the future. but as 2 yr old tree with first yr fig.. it was hard to say that i was impressed. it was few days early. few birds were circling it, so i took it.

the sweetness was there, the drip of honey was there. the skin was just right thickness, there was slight sweetness, and bit of that extra. but it didn't give me "wow".

there is another one turning dark and in about the same state as one i ate. i'll wait till sun. to take that one to see if there is any difference.

i'm thinking it will improve next yr to be a great fig.

Does anyone get to eat a fig perfectly ripe anymore or am i one of the few that has no critter problems.
Most of the post " had to pick early" .

Thats a real shame not being able to eat a perfectly ripe fig instead cause it makes a
big difference even a day or several.

Pictures?

pix will come with next BM :) i pop that sucker off the tree and threw it straight into my mouth.

Pete,

Nice to hear about your BM's ..please make sure the brakes are ok, otherwise we shall not be seeing any pictures !

Francisco

For me the BM last year was the first year and ripen half october or so, it was col, similar to now which is colder than you Pete, it was good tasting but not wowing either.  What did surprise me though was that it has a thick, rich syrupy taste and a hint of some fruit.  This year the taste has improved, although this year has been cold for me, the taste is more fruity, not by much, but with the cold weather here it is not developing full flavour, if the heat was normal here I imagine the flavours would have been fantastic, it still has that rich syrupy taste a bit more berry and floral taste for me but I think the rest that ripen will be made into a tasty jam as I should be able to enough for half a litre of jam at once but don't be disappointed, if you get the heat I think you will love her, the cold just doesn't do her enough justice, and Martin is right, if you can wait 3-4 more days, the flavour will improve quite a bit.

Martin, I am eating lots of perfectly ripe figs, especially after getting 250 organza bags. Do you have to deal with the birds at all?

hello all
We ate our first Black Madeira after waiting four years for a ripe one; it was the worst fig I ever ate. It was white inside, dry and tasted like sawdust. Obviously something was wrong. I'll give it one more year.
Vito

Organza bags for me too. Pete you really should them, they deter almost all of the birds around here. Unfortunately still no sign of ripening on my Black Madeiras. Weather forecast looks good though so I'm hoping. Vito, wow something really did go wrong!   

I just drape bird netting over my trees and tie it at the bottom, its a pain to harvest but the birds don't get any, only the ants.

Mike no no problems with birds here .
I have large fountain in middle of most the fruit bearing trees the birds come sometimes landing on branches of the plants fly to fountain take there baths and thats it.
The fountain has been there for very long time.