Santa Cruz Adventure. Golden Riverside Fig.

I love California, the weather is nicer and the food is oh so good! It's also the ideal environment to grow figs. It's also home to alot of good eats!

While in California, my brother and I perused good ole Craigslist and found someone selling an unfamiliar variety which he called the Golden Riverside Fig. He lives in Santa Cruz, which gave us a fun excuse to make the drive there. He's grown it in his family since 1920s and it's the only fig he grows. He's since moved so we have no way of contacting him now.

We are all not 100% sure it's an actual Golden Riverside since he came up with the name after doing a Google Search and found that the Golden Riverside was the closest a fig that looks similar to his.

 The Golden Riverside is a rather large fig and just happened to be ripening in October. The fruit is a golden color and the interior amber. Similar to an Italian honey but just much bigger but not as sweet. Perhaps with another week or so these figs would be dripping with honey. But we did not have the luxury of staying that long.

We met Robert the owner of the fig. He was extremely pleasant to talk to and even gave a us a handful of semi ripened figs to taste.

It's a good fig and the ones he gave us was not too sweet probably picked too prematurely. The sheer size though, should make it a fun one to grow. We bought 3 plants. One for me and the others for Vince and our other brother who lives in San Jose.

Here we are happy with our purchase!

Is my Jolly Tiger a capri fig?

This Jolly Tiger a was sold to me as a "Reverted Jolly Tiger" a couple years ago.  This was before I learned that there is no such thing as a reverted JT.  Well the tree never gained back it's variegation

Regardless, this year it fruited and I was a little excited to see how it would taste.

Having a fig critter around I was careful to bring this one into the green house with the doors closed. I checked on it the other day and noticed that the fig was missing. My initial thought was that damn it! I was hit by the fig critter again!

Well it never ripened and dropped. It sort of looks like a male carpifig. There certainly aren't any wasps here in Seattle. Well if anyone from California wants this fig. Please let me. You can have it =).

Fig Air Layer Updates & A Simple Self Watering System

It's been a long summer. With a full time career and my own business, two kids, 2 blogs (this one and my photography one), a full time garden, youtube channel, landlord and countless forums, I need vacation. It's not that I'm lazy but where I can save time I'll do it.

So I thought about it, with so many plants who's gonna water my garden. The video below shows a quick and cheap way to keep things watered for a few days.

I also did a followup on my simple air layer technique.

+ Extra footage on the Tree of Life at Kalaloch Beach in Washington State.