Hodges Honey Unk (FoE Fig Finds)

[Shaft]

Hodges Honey Unknown​

A FIG FROM A DISTANT AGE​

I and my business partner Brandon are both fascinated by fig-hunting. It makes sense, particularly in the California area, to hunt figs. That is to say, one goes out looking for wild figs that have planted themselves as seedlings, or finding little-known cultivars out in abandoned orchards. There's been plenty of great finds in this way, including things like Feather River or Edith's Raspberry Jam. It makes sense on the West coast but what about an East coast fig hunter where no fig wasp exists?
Well, it means each foray is, percentage-wise, a lot less likely to bear fruit, but you still get to meet some cool people, hear some cool stories, and, at times, try some cool figs. This was such an ocassion gone awry. Brandon had made contact with a male whom he believed to be the owner. They bonded over motorcycles and cars, before one day Brandon asked if he could take some fruit off the tree. This fruit was immediately brought to me, alongside a couple of leaves for ID. It had some qualities I believe distinguished it from some of the more common honey figs I've tried, but without growing them side by side under similar conditions, it was hard to say.

We set up a meeting with the male to come and harvest from the tree. He and his wife weren't big fans of the fruit, were neglecting the tree, and had no use for the harvest. During the harvest, I noticed some issues with the tree, primarily that air flow and sunlight were major issues for this tree. In our humid, hot climate, trees need to be able to breathe. This tree was suffocating, so we asked the male if we could trim back some of the branches, to which he said "Yes." We also found what may have been termites (Brandon was convinced, I was not) so we also asked to remove that wood and carry it away to be burned. Again, we were told "yes." When we left to go get the rest of the equipment we would need, we left the pieces we had pruned in the yard next to the tree. We were driving my car and would need Brandon's truck to remove the debris. When we returned, the male's fiancee had arrived home. He had left earlier before we left but told us we were fine to continue what we were doing. She was not happy, and she provided some more information to us. It was not the male's property, nor hers; it belonged to her family, and they were renters. We had been led to believe we were speaking with the owner.

I was put into contact with the actual owners, who for understandable reasons, were none -too-pleased. After explaining the situation, they calmed down and said they'd discuss the issue with their niece and her fiance. The owners were able to provide me far more detail about this tree than I had received up to this point, and this all but confirmed my suspicions that this was not just a regular honey fig prevalent in the community at present.

The person I was speaking with we will refer to as James. James was 46 at the time I spoke to him, the owner's son, and he told me a story of his grandfather's brother whom he always called "Uncle Fate." Uncle Fate unfortunately passed away several years ago and James' father inherited the property. Uncle Fate apparently had a passion for figs, as many figs were planted in that yard according to James. James, like most people in my area, believe figs to be short-lived trees, and he, along with his family, thought it odd that this particular tree had outlived all of the others by such a significant margin. James remembered this tree from when he was a very young child, saying it had always been a fixture in the yard, and massive. Many of the other trees that were planted were, according to James' Uncle Fate, "Turkey figs" which leads me to believe they were South-Eastern Brown Turkeys, a very common fig in my area. "Time, storms and other tenants have done away with a lot of those trees," James explained to me.

Peter Dana was the Portland nurseryman credited with bringing Peter's Honey fig to the Pacific North West sometime in the 80s or just before. The timeline cuts it close, but this could be the same fig -- but on the opposite side of the United States with little time to distribute it? I'm not so sure, in an age before internet sales. I think this is a fantastic fig, and I am looking for a match against all of the honey figs in my collection. If this is a project you'd like to participate in, please feel free to order some cuttings and report any discoveries you might find! The figs are fantastic as well.

FIG FLAVOR AND CHARACTERISTICS​

This is a very sweet fig with a distinctly honey taste, very good texture, and some resistance to rain. The eye does open ocassionally as it ripens, but the fig does not seem to spoil under these conditions. Precipitation does not appear to affect the flavor in any negative way under rainy conditions.
I am growing it side by side with Peter's Honey to compare. I am told by the family whom I received the source material from that it is unlike any honey fig they have ever sampled in both taste and texture, Peter's included.

WHO AM I?​

I am Shaft on OurFigs & The Fig Spot.

My name is Malcolm Heath. In February of 2020, I became a father to Ronin. This was just before the COVID situation really struck, right before grocery store shelves went empty. We came home from the hospital after an extended NICU stay, and were basically unprepared for the chaos in the world around us. It was like we were sheltered in the hospital from everything that was going on, and the system had ceased to function. I went to buy my family food, and there was nothing on the shelves. No meat to be had. I'm a chef, so my job is to come up with some unique creations, but this taxed even my skill. I never wanted to be in this position again. I felt like a failure, and I had barely been a dad for a week. I vowed to never let this happen again.

I started a garden. We have 14 acres of land outside of Greenville, NC. I knew nothing about gardening. Literally, nothing. My land is hard-packed clay. Very highly acidic, does not drain well at all. We are, in other words, a swamp. I made every mistake possible, with the intent of making as many mistakes as I could as fast as possible. I learned what worked, and what didn't. I got a few crops in the ground, most failed. Zucchinis did well, cucumbers kind of did, watermelons not so much (weeds got them). Butternut squash was probably my best harvest. We tried a hugelkultur bed. We did all kinds of stuff, the types of stuff someone who doesn't know what they're doing does when they look on the internet for help.

My stepdad reminded me that July, seeing me get so interested in growing my own food, that we had a fig tree. I loved fig as a kid, but I'd only eaten from this tree once. I just didn't spend a lot of time outside. I was a computer nerd. I forgot about it for most of my life. I got a massively abundant harvest of some of the best figs I could imagine. I shared them with everyone. I dried a bunch with the dehydrator my stepdad gave me. I was in love. This particular tree was given to my stepdad when I was 5 years old, in 1996, and he planted it immediately. This was a rooted cutting grown into a plant from the mother tree, which was itself a cutting from a tree in Israel that my stepdad's friend, a preacher, had smuggled through customs from Israel. He thought the fig was so good he risked jail time to get it here.

I went fig crazy.