Saturday, September 19, 2009

Italian Americans Growing Figs..Tis the Season.



The Fall in America is one of the best times for outside activities, but as an Italian American its the time of year when we expect our figs and start thinking about making wine. Here as you see my father has been growing his fig tree for years its loaded with figs every year and the actual figs are incredibly sweet. As soon as the figs bloom and ripen the tree will begin to lose it leaves as the cold weather approaches, then my father covers and wraps the tree in a tarp keeping it protected from the harsh winter weather. We live on the East coast and as you can imagine its not Italy, so growing anything is a challenge with our extreme humidity and cold. I will say, the figs are delicious. Now, if we live in Italy the figs are in abundance and we could actually make a variety of delicious foods based from the figs, such as our famous Christmas cookies, Petrali which are filled with figs. Next agriculture update will be talking about our next Fall activity which will be making wine.

3 comments:

Peter @ italyMONDO! said...

Isn't it amazing how the Italian immigrants brought a little bit of the old country with them here?

"New York winter or not - we're growing figs!"

:-)

elisa said...

We have a fig tree also.

Anonymous said...

We have a fig tree. The fig tree has been handed down from my Grandfather. Actually a cutting from the bottom of his fig tree is now the fig tree that is growing in South Jersey.
Yes, the figs are sweet with a purplish skin on the outside and sort of a purple-red color on the inside.
Be careful when eating figs off the trees, the bees like figs too!