A rent a small farm property about an hour from my farm and I don't make it there frequently this time of year, but went today and noticed the two fig trees near the owner's house had some nice large ripe breba figs.  I telephoned Jon since I thought these tasted pretty nice and read his comment recently where he said he has never eaten a breba fig that he thought was worth eating.  He said he stands by that comment.  I think these are pretty nice.  The tree is very neglected, never being pruned or fertilized.  I will get some watering as a result of me watering the adjacent ground or from the lawn being watered.  Soil is very sandy.  These figs were picked today on June 30th.  There were some that were a bit more ripe but I had eaten them already or the birds had. :)

Very tasty looking. Good potential & definitely an excellent find. See any main crop fig & if yes any idea what size?

Yes, there were plenty of main crop, maybe about 1/2" to 3/4" in diameter.  I may go back next week with my camera to photograph the tree.

After reading Mark's thread again tonight, I wish I had taken a photo today with my camera phone.  This tree is a productive breba producer.  It is about 6 feet tall and as wide.  I would guess that thee were about 100 or so ripe figs before I started picking today.

The old owner is from Sicily and he has brought other plants from Italy.  He had a cold or something today, so I did not visit with him.  I will ask him later where he obtained these figs.

He has a prickly pear which he brought here from Sicily and I asked him last year if he knew the variety name of it.  He just gave me an Italian word for "bastard".  I suspect I won't have much more luck with the fig, but I will try.  I also have a hard time understanding his speech, but I will ask him to write it down if he can come up with a name.

Ooops Harvey. Hope you don't need to have a welcome with slippers flying & U having to duck. This is definetly an interesting find, especially given main crop size approx half to three quarter inch size. Looks like no problem with main crop harvest before colder weather sets in. Bravo.

I have a good relationship with the owner and can go there any time.  He's comfortable enough with me that he came to the door in his boxer shorts yesterday! lol  He's 87, I believe, but not senile by any stretch of the imagination.  I still need to be careful as he talks tough and was a professional boxer at one time, POW in WWII, etc.  Even at that, he would have invited me into his home with my muddy boots yesterday if he and his wife did not have bad colds.

We had a lot of chilling hours this year.  Does that have much of an influence on cropping?

Hi Maggie,

I get along fine with Sal, but he always talks rough and makes me laugh and then he starts grinning.  He's not my neighbor, he's a landlord about an hour from my own farm.  And his other fruit is prickly pear (optuna), not pear!  He had written that down and it did just literally mean "bastard" which means a wild type.  He knows the English language well, but his fat old tongue from Sicily came along with him! :)  Actually, maybe he doesn't use his tongue; it sounds like he is speaking from his chest.

I should see him next week and will try then.

My wife is not a fig fan (I'm only moderately so) but had one of these figs the other day and said she thought it was nice and had a good flavor.

I did see some horrible looking "Mission" figs in a grocery store here in NorCal yesterday.  I know Ken from Hawaii has written a few times about the bad job done with marketing figs here.  $3.99 for a little basket of wilted up little figs in California is a killer!

Yes HarveyC,

Me too was doing some food shopping today, and to my surprise I saw a sign
claiming 'fresh CA figs'. Obviously, I went to investigate as apart that I do like figs,
it would have made a nice early July 4th dinner treat. On closer examination, they
were in those pint size baskets (similar to as most blueberries as sold in) and
wrapped in plastic. There were covered with mold! So I quickly walked away.
And yes, they also looked as Mission figs to me.

This is why we grow our own. Ripe figs are meant to be eaten right of the tree.
They do not ship/last well. Best place to sell fresh fig fruit is probably at local
farmer markets.

Sooo, lucky CA people are already eating figs! I do remember that in my old
country (which has similar Med climate), we used to have ripe BREBA
figs around late-June/early-July.

George (NJ).

The wife saw boxes & boxes of figs going for cheap at the supermarket on Monday. I asked how come never get some. She says, all moldy. So I went next day to check -- No more on display. Probably thrown away by Supermarket.

Harvey:
Your fig resembles one called Noire de Caromb.
Leon

Hi Leonard,

I'm not familiar with Noir de Caromb but read the description at http://figs4fun.com/Var_N_info.html#NOIREDECAROMB and it describes it as a small fig and the photo shows a longer/thinner fig than what I have.

When the description says harvest of August to October is that for the main crop only?

Also, I don't know that Sal would have a fig that came from France. ;)

just do us all a favor and don't start calling it "Sal's fig"

~Chills

Okay, would "Sal's unknown fig" be okay??? LOL

Maybe call it 'Harvey's Dark Fig'. At least we could trace it to U for now until the unknown becomes known. Just my 2 cents.

I went back to the farm today and all of the breba figs were gone so I did not bother to take a picture.  The owners have just gotten over a bad virus (stayed in the house for 10 days) so I didn't want to bother Sal with questions.  I will go back tomorrow or Monday to spray weeds and will ask for more info if he comes outside.

I went back again yesterday and the owner came out and was feeling better after a 10 day battle with some virus.

While he did bring some things to the U.S. from Sicily, he said that this fig came from a local friend and that it is 'Mission.'  I thought my dad had a 'Mission' also and his was not ready when this one was and the climate is almost identical.