A friend of mine has a son who is caring for his bosses  home and property while he is on vacation with his wife.  Before the couple left for vacation, they invited the son, his family and mother (my friend) to his home for an evening of swimming and socializing.  While there my friend noticed several fruit trees including a large fig tree loaded with figs!!

During the course of the evening they were talking about the trees and the couple mentioned THEY DON'T EAT THE FIGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!  The figs just fall to the ground and the squirrels and birds eat them!!!!!!!!!!

When my friend told me this I was SHOCKED!!!!!!!!   What kind of people are they!!   The don't eat their figs!!!!!!!!   This is criminal!!!!!   I have NEVER heard of people not eating their figs, there must be something wrong with them, that is the only conclusion I could come to!

My friend will be there this week, and said she will get some for me to try. SHE doesn't know if she has ever tried a fresh fig! She asked if they taste like dried figs, she doesn't like them.  Have you ever??

LOL LOL LOL LOL

Drives me crazy when I see that kind of waste too, Jo-Ann!

Maybe they have health issues like diverticulitis and aren't comfortable sharing this information. And growing food for the critters is not a crime.

I grow cucumbers and celery in the garden (bleh) but I do give them away to family and friends tho.
Haha, and in NJ, if you don't seatbelt your dog in the car, it's $1,000 (yes 3 zero's) and up to 6 months in jail. If you don't seatbelt yourselt I think it's $45.
A crazy world we live in.

Such a waste. I know I was reluctant to try a fresh fig when they were first presented to me. A coworker brought them from home in a brown bag and they looked a little gross to me, but I tried one just to make her happy. Wow, changed my world! Just get them to try one!

People eat or don't eat what they want. There are many things in the world that are considered delicacies that I would never consider eating. Around here, many people don't eat their persimmons. I'd love to get my hands on those too, now that I've discovered drying them. :)

A real crime would be to cut the trees down and pave the yard. At least this way the birds and other critters are fed. Not a bad thing to keep them out of my garden. ;)

We were supposed to have octopus at the NE Fig meeting. The chef forgot to bring it which was fine by me.

I have a lot of fig trees but have never tasted a fresh fig. This is why my husband questions my sanity.

I have one breba growing on my Negronne. When it ripens it will be my first fresh fig.

I walk my dogs every morning and pass by orange, lemon, and loquat trees still full of fruit, some falling and rotting. There is a guy who as a huge pineapple guava tree, in the fall he just sweeps the fallen fruit into his yard waste pile for the city to pick up. I take fruit from peoples yard waste piles whenever I see it on top  (provided it's not damaged for consumption). 

JoAnn, It's probably a brown turkey. I wouldn't eat it either. ;-)

I really think it depends on the Brown Turkey. I have one that is really pretty good!

Your friend wont know when they're ripe.  Have him invite you over with a uhaul.

I know many people who grow trees to distract trees from those that are more important to them.  In Houston, many people told me to grow a certain kind of string bean to keep the stink bugs out of my fig trees. 

Now, I need to grow something to distract the grasshoppers.

~james

BLB, it was a joke. ;-)

The poor Brown Turkey it gets so much abuse lol

I rather have a BT fig than no fig.
And I don't mind having a couple dozen of them laying around in my yard. That way when folks come over and want one I would be very happy to give them one and then they will say sheesh what a heck of a guy Rafed is.

At the same time I won't lose any sleep thinking why did I give away one of my beloved rare figs.

It's a win win.

If the unknown growing in my raised bed is actually a brown turkey like I think it may be...after tasting the figs last year and watching it put on over a foot of growth allready this year...I will grow brown turkey all day long.

(I am hoping for ripe breba figs soon so I may post photographs.   I would really like to ID this tree).

Dave I like that approach!!! I like to compare the figs to meat, Brown Turkey is maybe ground chuck, but I like ground chuck! Black Madeira must be like filet mignon, Kathleens Black is certainly as good as rib eye or better and so on.

Rafed I feel your pain. I've had a lot of requests for fig tree starters this year and parting with a premium is always tough. I look at it this way, if I give away some of my really good stuff I know have a source for a back up, provided who I give them to keeps them alive, sooo I have to determine which of my neighbors and friends have that green thumb, they get the rare stuff.