I should mention a fig hero of mine who doesn't post often anymore, Art ( kubota1) out near New Castle, PA. Art found some really interesting varieties including chiappetta, vibo Valencia, mittica white, and a few other outstanding varieties. He is a great fig hunter.
Dennis is right, there are a lot of interesting unknown varieties in the great state of Pennsylvania. Bass has certainly found many in the Allentown/Bethlehem area, and Art has found a lot in the Pittsburgh area.
I've "discovered" a few in the Lancaster area as well. A few of my neighbors had some fig trees in their yard and I asked about them. Sometimes the language barrier was a little tough, but the love of figs is a universal language so we were able to make do. A few of my favorites were: 1- a nice lady nearby was growing a unique fig tree with the largest figs I'd ever seen. She raised the tree from a cutting she brought from Fengtai, China. The figs would split a lot, but were very impressive looking and the ones that didn't split were very good. 2- a nice Greek lady had a huge tree (looked more like a hedge- 15 ft long) that she started as a cutting from the island of Kos about fifteen years ago.
There are others, too, but one of my favorites was found by a fellow fig enthusiast in Dubois, PA, named Jim. This one came from Lebanon and has remained in the ground for over seventy years.
In the early 1900s, Simon Dahrouge ( Syrian living in Lebanon, where he met his wife) moved to Dubois PA to open a general store. Dubois, is very cold and in the northwestern part of PA, well north of Pittsburgh. His tree is still growing on the former general store's ground in the middle of town. It is over seventy years old and survived brutal, snowy, windy winters. The Dahrouge family ( 4th generation) is still living in Dubois, but the general store is now a beauty salon ( I think). For years, he and his wife would enjoy sharing ripe figs in August and September with the town's children who would stop by for fountain sodas and confectionary treats. The kids could ( and still do) ride by on their bikes and pluck a few sweet figs in late summer and early fall. His wife brought the cuttings of this really sweet hardy fig and a few lemon cuttings with them. It is a black medium sized fig that tastes like a sweet strawberry when overripe.
|
