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Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday, dear blog!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday, dear blog!
Happy birthday to you!
I started blogging one year ago! What fun it has been! I have gotten to communicate with some interesting gardeners and I have learned a lot.
I started this blog with figs, and I will address a few more things about figs in this one year birthday entry. Figs are sorely underused in the mid-Atlantic landscape. They are easy, virtually pest free and produce an abundant crop, with little care (see that first entry). Mike McGrath (former editor of Organic Gardening and current host of WHYY's "You Bet Your Garden") is really down on traditional fruit trees (apples, pears, peaches, cherries) because of their great care needs. Now, I would not discourage anyone from trying these fruit trees (they give me alot of pleasure and fruit), but he is right that other fruits are much easier to care for- these include raspberries, strawberries and blueberries AND figs! So, this fall, think about planting a fig or two. They are hardy, with some winter protection the first few years in VA, and I have seen them as far north as northern New Jersey.
Oh, the photo above is a mutant fig from this season- it was delicious!
Happy gardening!
5 comments:
Nice blog and congrats on the anniversary! I came to it via Anita (Beyond the Diapers and Spills) who is a friend of my sisters. My wife and I started gardening in our backyard in DC this year and we love it although there are challenges, i.e. the cucumber beetle!. I have a few pics and posts about our garden over at my blog RANdom Walkway.
Take care and keep up the good work.
The blogging world is becoming more fascinating as we speak! I was surprised to see my friend's brother in your comments, but I guess it makes sense because I just saw a delicious looking fruit pie on his blog a day or two ago.
About the figs...are they not grown as much because they're not number 1 on the taste ladder. I hardly see anything at groceries stores made of figs. Fig Newtons??
Happy Blogging Anniversity! And thanks for giving me a boost to get going with it too.
Thanks RANdom for your kind note! The cucumber beetle is my nemesis too, but I do get a decent crop of cukes using floating row covers as long as I can to keep them at bay! I look forward to seeing your blog!
Hi Anita,
The reason you hardly ever see anything at grocery stores made of figs is because figs are a delicate, fragile fruit and can only be eaten fresh if you grow them yourself or have nearby friend who does. Commercial products have to use dried figs or cooked fig paste, which taste nothing like the delicately sweet fruit from the tree. When you do (rarely) see the actual fruit in the store, it was picked before ripe and is tasteless (and expensive). The only analogy I can think of is raisins, which are no way comparable to fresh grapes. Or I guess prunes versus plums....
I will have a new appreciation for figs the next time I get to eat one fresh. Thanks for the explanation.
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