Palermo Sicily Black. Fig with a bit of history

Palermo Sicily Fig.

I love meeting new figgy friends! Sometimes it's nice to know that you're not the only fig nut out there.

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to acquire a great new fig plant and I am super excited about it!! It has been growing at a Tacoma house for years unprotected and produces reliably every year.

At the moment, Mark is calling it Palermo Sicily from where it came from. But I'm not 100% sure what kind of fig it is. It's a definitely a common fig and doesn't require pollination. I'll have to do some more research to see if it matches any of the existing varieties.

My adventure with acquiring this fig started with meeting a nice gentlemen name Mark through his ebay listing. It came with a fascinating back story. I was fortunate enough see that he was local to my area. So we arranged a meeting.

Here's the original listing.

" I am selling a rooted cutting of my Great Grand Fathers fig tree. The cover photo is the tree I am selling on this listing. My family left a small town outside of Palermo Sicily in 1914 where they had a farm. Some years later more family came to America and they brought cuttings from the fig tree of the farm he left behind. He planted it in the Bronx, New York some time in the 1920's. The tree lived and produced figs for many years for family and friends. In the 1994 I went back to visit my Grandmother and she wanted me to plant cuttings here in Tacoma, Washington where in live.  I put root tone on the cutting and it has done very well with many large figs each year.  This tree can take a good trimming and still give lots of figs that same year with one large crop a season. In New York we would cover the tree in the winter and uncover in the spring. ( This fig tree will not take a hard cold winter like on the east coast without covering it. Here I have not needed to cover. ) I also have planted this fig in both Cave Creek Az. and Phoenix Az. and it has done very well. My Great Grand Father Michael Agnello in the last photo would say "The trick with this tree is the more water you give it as the figs ripen the bigger the friut ". This is a great tree with delicious figs !  Happy biding and thank you for visiting this post."

Mark's Great grandpa.

 I met up with Mark, interestingly enough in front of one of my favorite Italian restaurants, and we exchanged a few plants and cuttings. I think I may have gotten the better of the deal because he also gave me an amazing jar of Desert King jam on top of everything else.

 The fig I got was larger than the one pictured here. I immediately up potted it to give it a boost in growth.

Thanks Mark, you have a new friend!

Update. Here's the beautiful new plant.

 

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Update on this plant 6/29/18

Approaching it's 3rd yr this plant is starting to produce figs in full stride.