Wednesday, February 21, 2018

Can you grow Jackfruit from seeds?

When I was a child, back in the 80's my parents would drive us all to Vancouver, BC to get fresh tropical fruits like longan, jackfruit, rambutan, cherimoya, and even the legendary stinky fruit durian. These exotics tropicals were not available here in the states yet in fresh form. They were always frozen which ruined the taste.

Those were the moments that shaped my love for tropical fruit.

{The picture below is of me at age 3 with my dad hanging out on the beach in Vietnam. This was the first time I ever tasted sliced bread. It remember it being the best piece of bread I've ever tasted in my life at the time. In my right hand was a small plastic bag that contained a crab that I had just caught}



Back then, tropical fruits were not abundant in Seattle. Maybe because they weren't commercially grown yet here in North America.

It was because eating fresh tropical fruit only happened once a year that it seemed like such a special occasion. I still treasure those memories. Including the number of times my dad got ticketed for trying to bring home fruit across the border. That is still a big no no nowadays.

Luckily today, I can go to the local Asian market and pick up most of the tropical fruits that we enjoyed 30yrs ago.

Including Jackfruit. Which can be sold as a whole fruit or in portions.


The taste of jackfruit can be compared to eating a tropical banana peel except much better obviously. It's super sappy so wear gloves when you cut into these and have some oil on hand for your knife.

The seeds can be grown quite easily as well. They sprout relatively easily using the paper towel method.

Now will they ever grow fruit is the other question. Probably not since these trees need to get pretty huge before they can produce fruit. But it's fun to try regardless.







Tuesday, February 20, 2018

It's like Black Friday for Figs!

Image may contain: 1 person, smiling, sunglasses, tree and outdoor



Harvey is almost synonymous with the American Fig culture. He has an amazing reputation, a great website and arguably one of the largest collections of figs in the US. He's also a very fair and stand-up guy.

He grows his figs out of California and has over 350 varieties in his collection. Not everything is available for sale until he verifies the variety to be true. That's a big service to us collectors. Since there are too many folks trying to make $$$ before verifying what they truly have. Every year he culls varieties that are too similar so that he can distribute only the best to his customers.

Towards the end of the January, he sells his fig cuttings to the general public. And just like Black Friday for most folks, when Harvey opens his web page it's a mad dash for folks to click and buy the best varieties 1st.

This year, I did get the majority of what I wanted but I missed out on the Paratjal Rimada and RDS BV. Luckily for me Harvey contacted me last minute about some extra Sanguinatos, so I'm stoked to be getting some of those cuttings.


His cuttings are top notch, long and thick and fresh. Some can be cut down to two cuttings.

Here's a list of what I got. I went back for seconds LOL.

1st order
Cyprus 2
Dels Ermitans 2
Figo Sofeno Escuro 2
GM172 Gozo Girl 3
Hative De Argentueil 3
Lampeira Prusch 2
Maltese Beauty 1
Mega Celeste 2
Patlican  2
Planera  2
Sierra 2
Tres Ao Prato 2
Tsapleosiko 2
2nd order 
Hirschstetten 3
GM202 3
Albacor de Molla Blanca 1
GM149A Gozo Rose 1
Gulbun 1
Baleares Plot 3  1
Melanzana 1
I376  3
White Adriatic 1
Sanguinato 2



Harvey's a great guy and I greatly respect his work.

* REf: https://www.comstocksmag.com/qa/back-and-forward-harvey-correia-working-world-figs

His youtube: https://www.youtube.com/Figaholics
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Figaholics/
Website: http://figaholics.com/

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Figs to Avoid for the Pacific Northwest

I have 275 Fig varieties in the collections and growing. At the moment I'm rooting or will root over 50 more varieties.

Why?

Answer: Because I have this strange drive to trial as many varieties as I can to help those folks in the PNW or with any similar climate to pick out the best tasting, productive varieties for our climate.

Along the way I've uncovered some great tasting brebas like the Calderwood unknown and Brandon St Unk. Which are great for this area.

But there's also a list of figs that we should avoid here. Even with a green house they are difficult to get a ripe fruit from.

After 3yrs of growing with no fruit, they fig is not meant to be grown here in the PNW.  Some figs just do better in different climates.



My growing List for Fig Varieties that have not fruited for here in the PNW. It's a growing list so come back to this.

1. Mission - Hard to get a ripe fruit from this variety
2. Panache - So frustrating. The fruit will come so close to ripening but just will never get there
3. Igo
4. Karachi green - Requires a long season
5. Deanna - Bad Splitting problem not rain resistent
6. Alma - Requires a long season
7. **Kadota - I may need to get mine from another source to give a 2nd shot. But the fruit I got was terrible. Might be from the original source
8. Col De Dames in General - These are truly late varieties and without a heated greenhouse, don't bother wasting your money. They are very expensive and will not ripen in ground here. (with exception to CDD Grise, blanc and maybe Noir which can ripen with a greenhouse)
9. Galicia Negra
10. Genoa - Requires a king season
11. Greek Papa
12.  Green Jolly Tiger - I think I bought one of those Bunk reverted green jolly tigers. It fruited but was a capri fig
13. Lake Spur - maybe an adriatic fig. But this fig has never fruited
14. Pappa John
15. Unk Greek Cephalonia
16. Pink Jerusalem
17. Dauphine
18. Pastillere
19. Ponte Tresa
20. Martinenca Rimada
21. White Genoa



More to come


Online Varieties of Figs from Monserrat Pons

Check out this website for Monserrat Pons. He also has book out. The English version is a bit harder to come by. This web page page is great to see all the varieties he's documented.
Use Google chrome to Translate the page.


Photo Credit to Monserrat Pons.
https://monserratpons.com/variedades/