National Fig Week? Homemade Fig Newtons!

According to Sacramento's main promoter of supermarket fruits and vegetables, Michael Marks, this week is National Fig Week. It seems a bit late in the fig season to be celebrating this under-utilized fruit, but what the heck...anytime is a good time to enjoy figs, fresh or dried! 

Fig images courtesy Dave Wilson Nursery

Figs are part of a heart-healthy diet. 3 to 5 dried or fresh figs provides 3.5 grams insoluble fiber and 1.5 grams water-soluble fiber. Diets rich in soluble and insoluble fibers, such as the fiber found in figs, help maintain healthy blood cholesterol levels.

 The fruit from the most popular home fig tree varieties are usually harvested around here in September and October. Still, some of you may have a few figs lurking on your backyard trees.

I enjoy fresh figs as part of a fruit salad. For those of you who want the occasional sweeter treat, eaten in moderation, you may enjoy this recipe for:

Homemade Fig Newtons

For the Filling:
1 lb. dried figs or 2 lbs. fresh figs
1 cup sugar
1/2 or 1 cup water (1 cup for dried figs; 1/2 cup for fresh)
Dice figs, soak in water 1 hour.
Add 1 cup sugar & cook on medium heat until it has a thin jam consistency.

For the Pastry:
1/2 cup butter, room temp.
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon cream or milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Beat 1 cup sugar, butter, egg, milk & vanilla until well blended.

Then add these to the pastry mix:
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 3/4 cup flour
Mix well and refrigerate for 1 hour.

=======================

Place 1/2 of the pastry on well floured dough cloth; knead about 6 times.

Roll out pastry to 1/4" thick. 

Line the inside of the 13 x 9" glass dish with the rolled pastry; cover that with fig filling.
Roll out remaining pastry, and cover the fig filling in the glass dish. Cut off any excess pastry dough.

Cook at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
Let cool and cut into squares.

The Green Fruit Beetles Return in 2010

     While searching for ripened tomatoes in the garden last night, a familiar loud buzz zoomed by my ear. You may be hearing that same ferocious buzzing as you are picking the backyard tomatoes, figs, corn and berries these days. You just might be disturbing the eating habits of the green fruit beetle (Cotinis mutabilis), munching away at the overripe and damaged fruits and vegetables in your garden. It's not just the sound that will stop you in your tracks. The combination of the biplane-like buzz as well as the sight of these slow flying, large (an inch and a quarter long), metallic green-shelled creatures might make you drop your crops.



And yes, here in California, add the green fruit beetle to the list of suspects when you notice a chomped-on tomato.

    
Entomologist Baldo Villegas of the California Department of Food and Agriculture says his office has noted the growing presence of green fruit beetles in southern Sacramento County, beginning a few years ago. Until the 1990's, they had only migrated as far north as Fresno.

     "This beetle is now widespread from Mexico to the southwest and into northern California," says Villegas. "They are migrating northward fast." Villegas explains that the beetle is more vexing for backyard gardeners than commercial growers. "I consider them a nuisance pest," says Villegas. "They feed on rotting or open fruit and are attracted to them by the gas emitted by the fruit."

    

A native of Mexico, Villegas recalls the green fruit beetle as a harbinger of summer. "We used to catch them on fruit damaged by birds or in rotting fruit laying around on the ground," says Villegas. "We would tie a piece of string on one of their hind legs and that would allow them to fly along side of us."

    

Unlike a balloon on a string that escapes your grasp, the green fruit beetle is not going to drift away, high into the sky. Right now, those beetles are laying their eggs in your piles of garden compost, manure and mulch. So, the best control is to remove any such piles from the areas where you have seen the feeding adults. Turning the piles frequently will expose the larval stage of these beetles, a C-shaped, creamy white grub. Hand picking or flooding the area for two days can limit these noisy munchers during the next gardening season. And, chickens consider those grubs a delicacy.

To limit the spread of the adult beetles now, take away their food supply: fruit that is getting too soft on the vine. Trapping might be somewhat successful, according to UC Davis Integrated Pest Management Director Mary Louise Flint. In her book, "Pests of the Garden and Small Farm," she says that the green fruit beetle can be attracted to a half-filled one gallon jar, containing a 50-50 mix of peach or grape juice and water. Make a funnel out of small mesh wire and place it in the jar's opening. This will allow the beetles to get inside, but not back out. 

Insecticides are not recommended against the adult green fruit beetle. The UC Davis Integrated Pest Management website offers these tips for green fruit beetle control: "Early harvest and removal of fallen fruit can also reduce damage. To manage grubs (pictured here), remove all manure, lawn clippings, or leaf piles from areas near fruit trees and turn compost piles frequently to speed decomposition and expose small grubs. If grubs are found, they may be killed by flooding the infested area for at least 2 days."


And if the buzzing is too loud? Another good argument for I-Pod gardening.