Fig!

Day 241: This is momentous news! My "Desert King" fig tree is finally bearing fruit! I counted six end-of-thumb sized figs and a possible seventh smaller one developing. I don't recall exactly when I planted the tree, but it was given to me by a friend who lives in Olympia roughly ten years ago. I can remember when hers produced its first figs (two, if memory serves) and how the following year, the count slightly more than doubled. By its third year of production, she was begging people to take figs off her hands. I obliged by accepting a large panful for canning and, in years since, have brought them home by the bucketful to eat fresh, can and dry. Her tree is now a good fifteen feet high and at least as wide. My offshoot is a mere four feet tall, so six figs is a pretty good showing for its first crop. "Desert King" makes a fairly large green fig, delicious straight off the tree. It is one of the hardier varieties, ideal for the Pacific Northwest. Figs are produced on the current year's growth, so the tree should be pruned regularly to keep the fruit within easy reach.