Blue Giant

17 years ago

I'm currently in San Antonio, Tx. working for 2 weeks. I found a farmers market today, I was happy to see farmers selling figs. Incredible price, I paid $3 for 2-3 pounds. There were 3 types of figs being sold. The one farmer was selling Blue Giant fig, It seems purple in color and very large, inside is pink. Flavor is great. The guy told me that it's only available at Fannicks nursery. So I drove there and bought the 1 gallon tree. He showed me the original tree, said it was there for the past 60 years, Fannick has a patent on it.

In the discribtion at pitanga's site, mentions that it's a brown turkey. The flavor and the color is really different. Also mentioned in the site that it's a long season variety, the tree was filled with ripe fig in mid july, so i'm gonna give it a try in pennsylvania.

It's also odd, I bought from the market what they called "celeste", but it's yellow fig, with honey like pulp. Excellent flavor.

I also wanted to get a cold hardy avocado from "devine avocado", they're sold out.

Bass

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Comments (9)

kinggraham
17 years ago
awesome
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eukofios
17 years ago
Would the patent still be good on a 60 year old variety?
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Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. I really appreciate your opinions and for some background info. regarding this fig. I checked out some older postings on this forum, and as I suspected, different growers have different experiences with this fig. Some good, some bad. I'm going to keep it for a few seasons just to see if it's worth growing, and especially to see what the figs taste like. I think I read in a past posting that these figs are being sold in a Farmer's Market down in Texas, so, if grown correctly, the figs must be at least worth eating. I've grown "GOLDEN ATREANO" since 2007 and the figs - when properly ripened - are "slap-your-Mama" delicious, and if the "BLUE GIANT" comes close, I keep it, .... if it stinks, it gets tossed ! Thanks for the input and photos. Much appreciated. Happy growing, Frank
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gorgi
17 years ago
Probably yes, depending on the date the claim was FIRST made..
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Yadda
17 years ago
Hi Bass,

Glad to see you took our advice. Have you had an opportunity to eat at Pico de Gallo or Mi Tiara? Awesome food at both places. Make sure you check out the fig in back of the Alamo. Probably a Brunswick. Also visit the missions. I imagine there were figs at all of the missions but you can't find any now. The mission buildings are amazing considering the lack of building materials and trained craftsmen. Technology is wonderful but the people in those days were smarter than we are today. They did much more with much less. Yadda out.
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kiwinut
17 years ago
There are only two patented varieties of Ficus carica that come up in a plant patent search, 'Violetta'(March 6, 2000) and a seedless fig 'Janice'(September 27, 1991), and no patent applications for any other varieties. Also, no plant patents have ever been issued to Fannick Nursery. Depending on when the patents were filed, they last for either 20 years from the patent application date, or 17 years from the issue date.

Maybe they trademarked the name "Blue Giant"? Or maybe they were just feeding you a lot of BS.
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kiwinut
17 years ago
Upon further review, the plant patent searches only seem to go back to 1976, so there could have been a patent to Fannick for Blue Giant. However, it would be long since expired.
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girlfromthegarden
17 years ago
yadda, is there more than one fig tree at the Alamo? I didn't think so, and I have two cuttings growing from it (provided through the kindness of the horticulturalist there) - the leaves on mine don't look anything like my aunt's Brunswick figs (of which I have 15+ plants!). My Alamo figs' leaves are more "lobe-y" and don't have deep fingers to them. What about yours? (mine could be juvenile, I guess, but the size of the cuttings he sent, and the ones my aunt got me two years ago, were about the same maturity, so I don't imagine the leaves would be that radically different if they were the same or close to the same cultivar). I really need to get a digital camera one of these days.

Btw, I also have a Blue Giant, small (from a cutting), and am very much looking forward to it fruiting eventually. It might have a tiny fig or two on it this season, but I don't know that it'd have time to mature any if the fruit is just starting now - guess I'll find out what it does!

Sherry
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bjs496
17 years ago
Hi Bass,

I've seen a variety labeled "Celestial" in some of the nurseries in Houston. At first I thought it was a Celeste, however the picture on the label shows a greenish-yellow fig. It may be what you saw.

I bought a Blue Giants at Fanick's last May. For the remainder of last year's growing season and the first few months this year, it grew not at all. Since then it has grown leaps and bounds. Hopefully in a few weeks, I will taste a few of the figs off my tree. Perhaps I'll try to stop by the Alamo on Thursday on my way out of SA and check out the fig situation first hand. I wonder if they overwinter it in the basement. ;)

~james
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Yadda
17 years ago
Sherry,

Only one fig on the grounds of the Alamo. You may be correct. The leaves are definitely not indicative of Brunswick but the fruit is more like Brunswick than anything I have seen so far. Time will tell once I can get better pictures and cuttings into the hands of more knowledgeable people than myself on the subject. Yadda out.
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