Fig Season is here!

Well the long awaited Fig season has arrived! It's a bit a of wild scene out there once the fruit start getting ripe and real battle between Man and Bird. For about 2 months leading up to ripening the local birds in the know will pop by to tentatively peck the Figs to check how far away they are from being, as we say around here - "Jam". "Jam" is what we refer to when you get a Fig at its peak, juicy ripeness. There is nothing worse than a dry, seedy Fig picked before its prime. But left too long to hang, you risk coming back to a Fig ravaged by the Birds.
Since ancient times Figs have been cultivated by man. They were one of the first plants that was cultivated by humans and are well known throughout the world. Fossilised Figs dating to about 9400BC were found in an early Neolithic village in the Jordan Valley, 13 km north of Jericho.

The unusual fruit grows on a deciduous subtropical tree. Although we think of them as a Mediterranean tree, they are actually native to Western Asia. There are several types of fig available in NZ but worldwide, there are thousands of cultivars that have been developed as human migration brought the fig to many places outside its natural range. Figs have grown successfully in home orchards & backyards since early European settlers first brought them to New Zealand. Figs are deciduous and grow to become very large trees - making them fairly difficult for most suburban gardens where regular pruning & maintenance will be needed.
With an age-old reputation as a sustaining and nourishing food, figs are friendly to the digestive system in either fresh or dried form. This is because they contain an enzyme called ficin that helps the digestive process by soothing your gut. They are also mildly laxative. Dried figs are a rich source of fibre, iron, potassium and calcium, making them a useful food for people with high blood pressure. Weight for weight, a fig contains more fibre than most other fruits or vegetables, so they're great for your bowels and your cholesterol levels. They're also high in polyphenol antioxidants, which can make them a valuable food for cancer prevention. Figs are odd trees - they don't produce flowers - the blossom is inside the fruit, and it's these blossoms with their little seeds that produce the crunchy texture. 

There are two fruiting types of varieties with Figs. One has two crops of figs produced each year the other just one. The first or breba crop develops in the spring on last year's shoot growth (Jan-Feb). The main fig crop (April-May) develops on the current year's shoot growth and ripens in the late summer or autumn. The main crop is generally superior in quantity and quality, but some cultivars can produce good breba crops. Fruit will need picking daily to ensure top quality and to minimise spoilage and bird attacks. The fruit don't age well once picked and will need to be eaten within a few days of picking.

To produce high quality fruit, fig trees will need maintenance and care after planting. By nature the root systems are very inquisitive so be conscious of the proximity of plumbing and services if planting them in the ground. Once planted, trees should produce fruit in 2 years. Then once settled in, they are a seemingly unstoppable tree. They will reach good harvest volumes in 5-7 years. Trees should go on producing for years to come. Some plantings in California are 100 years old and still producing excellent volumes of fruit.
They need a sheltered, north facing position which catches the sun all day. Put them in shade and will they use all their energy finding sun and none producing fruit. They should be planted on flat or gently sloping ground so they are easy to pick and tend.
They prefer soil to be free draining and will not cope with being waterlogged.
Whilst the trees are relatively drought resistant, fruit will not ripen to its prime if the trees aren't watered. If your area dries out, it is advisable to invest in an irrigation system which will supply water during the growing season. This will ensure your fruit is juicy and grows to optimum size.
The main pest you will find with your Fig will be Birds. You will need some protection from birds who will damage the fruit on the trees. Unless if like me you like to share with them & enjoy watching all the Waxeyes & Tui's & other birds enjoying them also. For us, our tree is so old & large there is enough for everyone:)  Figs aren't as prone to disease as some other fruit crops making them a good candidate for organic growers.

  

The fig tree is fast growing and requires pruning to keep it at a manageable height. Pruning also helps to limit shading the fruit, which will delay ripening. I have heard of people trimming off the leaves to help ripen the fruit quicker. Although the tree does start dropping leaves about mid March to help this process. I have seen an orchard which espaliered the trees, set up like a vineyard with wires strung between posts. This would be costlier to set up but would help ensure the fruit was always at an accessible height, making picking less labour intensive in the long run.

  

                                                

Fig Paste

Figs, skins removed & pureed.

Equal amount of Jam Sugar.

​or 2 cups Caster Sugar & 4¼ TBS Powdered Pectin.

1. Combine the Fig puree & Sugar in a large saucepan & place over a medium heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves.

2. Turn up heat & bring to boil. Stirring regularly boil for 4 mins.

3. At this point you can pour into jars as Jam or dry out into Fig Paste.

2. Grease the base & sides of 6 ramekins & divide the paste evenly among the ramekins. 

3. Place in fan-forced oven with only the fan working in a very low oven (90°C) for several hours to dry out.You could use a traditional method for drying the paste in the sunshine or in an airing cupboard

3. Remove from the ramekins & wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate.

New Citrus: Kiyomi Tangor & Okitsu Wase Mandarin

   

This week i have acquired two new Citrus buddies for the garden with both being able to be ready to eat straight off the tree. 
The first is the Kiyomi Tangor. I chose this guy as i've been FOMOing about the Sumo/Dekopon tree for a while now (check out my post here) and i discovered that Kiyomi is one of the parent varieties of the Dekopon so would be worth a try.
Kiyomi is a Tangor hybrid. It has a parentage of Miyagawa-wase (Satsuma mandarin) crossed with a Trovita orange at the Okitsu Branch, Fruit Research Station in Japan in 1949. It was named Kiyomi after the temple Seiken-ji (清見寺) and the lagoon Kiyomi-gata (清見潟) near its experiment station in Shizuoka city
Fruit are medium-large (150-200 g), flat, seedless, juicy, and orange scented.
The tree bears good crops of large, bright orange fruit with pebbly-textured skin that is fairly easy to peel. Rich and spicy in flavor, Kiyomi are sweet. Sugar content is normally 11–12°Bx and reaches even 13°Bx if conditions are met. Citric acid content is around 1%. It has no seeds. They will ripen about late September in NZ. The flavour is similar to that of a mikan Mandarin, while the aroma is similar to that of an Orange.

  

The second tree i chose this time is the Okitsu Wase Mandarin. I chose this tree as i had read promising things about them via the Fruit Mentor. In his taste test of over 60 varieties, Okitsu Wase was the overall winner:

"Okitsu Wase Satsuma was the overall winner. Tasters reported Okitsu Wase to be sweet with excellent flavor and very juicy. One taster also noted its fragrant skin. On a scale from 1 to 9, Okitsu Wase scored 7.3, a bit higher than “very good” (7)."

Another desirable quality is that Okitsu Wase is an early season Satsuma, in fact is the earliest ripening cultivar so is a good choice to help extend the season.

The fruit is Seedless, Easy Peel, good rich flavour with low acid and high sugar.  The skin has smooth pale yellow peel, and plump, juicy flesh. 

Okitsu is a variety from the Unshiu tangerine group Wase, second most popular and cultivated variety in Japan. It was discovered in 1940 as a Miyagawa' seedling in the Okitsu research station, Honshu. It was bred by crossing 'Miyagawa' with Poncirus. It is most commonly growing in the colder subtropical areas with harsh winters.

'Okitsu' is a big shrub or a small tree, it can grow up to 2,7m and has very wide, spherical crown made of curly branches with small spikes. The foliage is usually very scarce, but the large, pointed leaves resemble those of Unshiu tangerine 'Clausellina'. 'Okitsu' starts producing at very early age and is fairly resistant to cold but also dislikes hot and dry climates and can easily get sun-damaged during hot weather. It is also necessary to thin the fruit shortly after formation, because this variety usually produces much more than it can bring to full ripeness. Pollination is not required to produce high yields. Okitsu fruit is distinctively spherical or slightly flattened, average (5,5-8cm) weighs 120-190g and has a small navel with big neck. Its dark orange rind is soft, smooth, thin (2-4mm) and well attached to the refreshing, juicy (54%) orange pulp, which contains 19% sugars. It is usually divided into 11-12 segments and usually doesn't contain any seeds. 

The fruit is usually harvested in March-April in NZ and contains lots of acids in the pre-ripening phase; it usually ripens 15-20 days earlier than 'Owari'. Almost unripe fruit has to be carefully harvested and put into the storage to let it ripen. It is vital to be careful and not to damage the thin rind or otherwise the fruit dries out.

The Citrus Hedge

I thought i'd share with you guys one area of my garden i call "The Citrus Hedge".
I planted most of it about 3 years ago and it seems this year it has really grown to its full potential. It runs along the southern edge of my section and was initially planted to screen off the neighbours for privacy but the main purpose was a space to practice intensive backyard orchard culture for delicious fruit! I first came across the concept of Backyard Orchard Culture online at Dave Wilson Nursery. (See Below). 

Here's what i have planted, just in this hedge area:

Feijoa Apollo

Eureka Lemon

Tarrocco Blood Orange

Tahitian Lime

Scarlett Burgess Mandarin

Variegated Calamondin

Tahitian Lime

Australian Finger Lime

Buddha's Hand

Cara Cara Orange

Invictus Gooseberry

Moro Blood Orange

Grapes : Albany Black & Niagra

Also planted down the side of house i have:

Peach Golden Queen

Apple Pacific Rose

Nectarine 

Peach Pixzee

They all seem to be growing well together the only thing is that some of the trees are more vigorous than others, so need pruning to control them so they don't invade the other tree's space. I have to be careful in the timing of this however as in NZ we have a nasty bug called Lemon Tree Borer that, if its around, will smell the freshly cut wounds and lay its eggs which in turn will bore destructively through the tree's branches. I also prune to keep the trees from taking over the whole space down the side of the house and to allow for walking down the area.

What is Backyard Orchard Culture? Here's the low down in a nutshell......

The objective of Backyard Orchard Culture is a prolonged harvest of tree-ripe fruit from a small space in the yard. This is accomplished by planting an assortment of fruit trees close together and keeping them small by summer pruning.
Backyard Orchard Culture Is Not Commercial Orchard Culture.
For years, most of the information about growing fruit came from commercial orchard culture: methods that promoted maximum size for maximum yield but required 12-foot ladders for pruning, thinning and picking, and 400 to 600 square feet of land per tree. Tree spacing had to allow for tractors. Most people today do not need nor expect commercial results from their backyard fruit trees. A commercial grower would never consider using his methods on a 90 ft. x 100 ft. parcel, so why should a homeowner?

Backyard Orchard Culture Is High Density Planting And Successive Ripening.

The length of the fruit season is maximized by planting several (or many) fruit varieties with different ripening times. Because of the limited space available to most homeowners, this means using one or more of the techniques for close-planting and training fruit trees; two, three or four trees in one hole, espalier, and hedgerow are the most common of these techniques. Four trees instead of one means ten to twelve weeks of fruit instead of only two or three. Close-planting offers the additional advantage of restricting a tree's vigor. A tree won't grow as large when there are competing trees close by. Close-planting works best when rootstocks of similar vigor are planted together. In many climates, planting more varieties can also mean better cross-pollination of pears, apples, plums and cherries, which means more consistent production.

Backyard Orchard Culture Means Accepting The Responsibility For Tree Size.
Small trees yield crops of manageable size and are much easier to spray, thin, prune, net and harvest than large trees. If trees are kept small, it is possible to plant a greater number of trees in a given space, affording the opportunity for more kinds of fruit and a longer fruit season. Pruning is the only way to keep most fruit trees under twelve feet tall. The most practical method of pruning for size control is Summer Pruning. There are several reasons why summer pruning is the easiest way to keep fruit trees small. Reducing the canopy by pruning in summer reduces photosynthesis (food manufacture), thereby reducing the capacity for new growth. Summer pruning also reduces the total amount of food materials and energy available to be stored in the root system in late summer and fall. This controls vigor the following spring, since spring growth is supported primarily by stored foods and energy. And, for many people, pruning is more enjoyable in nice weather than in winter, hence more likely to get done.

 

 

Blood Oranges

One of the things i look for when deciding on a fruit tree is that it has to be a little bit special than something you can easily find at the supermarket. Because why go to all that trouble to grow something that when its in season will probably be quite cheap & readily available. This is why i love Blood Orange trees. For starters they are very rarely available to buy in stores and when they are, they are imported and always seem a bit past their prime. Yes they are Oranges, but slice them open and you’re rewarded with a surprise – deep, almost purple flesh and a distinct sweet Raspberry flavour. The fruit is usually slightly smaller than most Oranges. 

The distinctive dark flesh color is due to the presence of anthocyanins, a family of antioxidant pigments uncommon in most Citrus fruits. The flesh develops its characteristic maroon colour when the fruit develops with low temperatures during the night.  Sometimes there is dark colouring on the exterior of the rind as well, depending on the variety of blood orange.

The three most common types of blood oranges are the Tarocco (native to Italy), the Sanguinelli (native to Spain), and the Moro (native to Sicily). The Moro is the most pigmented with an almost black colouration and also has the strongest aroma & richest flavour. While also pigmented, Cara Cara navels have red pigmentation too but this is based on Lycopene,  not anthocyanins like Blood Oranges. I have planted at home : 3 Moro, 1 Tarocco, 1 Sanguinelli and 2 Cara Cara. Of these i have only had the Tarocco fruit and it was moderately coloured but took until late in the season (August) to colour up. It seems the Blood Oranges trees take longer to fruit than some other varieties for instance my oldest Moro is just fruiting this year after 4 years!

So why we don’t see Blood Oranges commercially grown in NZ? I think this is partly due to the degree of difficulty in growing them.  To deliver a true blood orange, we need to have the right environmental conditions to help build the levels of anthocyanins.  Half the battle is growing them in the right temperament, in a lattitude that provides harsh, dry and hot summers as well as cool, nippy winters.  The next issue is to then choose a suitable location that will provide maximum temperature differential during autumn & winter.  What this basically mean’s is that to grow Blood Oranges successfully and to their fullest potential, they need to be grown in a location that will provide almost freezing night temperatures as well as high day temperatures.  In a technical standpoint, the stress the tree endures during this weather process forces the tree to develop the much needed anthocyanins.  Not many places that are suitable for Citrus meet this quality. That said, in my garden in Ponsonby, NZ, i was still able to produce Blood Oranges with a good degree of pigmentation last year with my Tarocco. So i look forward to what i can produce when the Moros gets around to fruiting. My theory is they need almost a freeze in winter (i.e.: around 0 degrees Celsius for a few nights at least) to colour up as i checked the Bloods in about June and they were sweet & ripe with no colour. But left until August after a few cold weeks they had good colouration.