When to Pick Figs: They Only Ripen on the Tree

Picked early, it stays that way

A great deal of fruit will finish ripening off the plant. A pear, a banana or a tomato carries a store of starch that keeps converting to sugar after picking, so an underripe one improves on the windowsill. A fig does not work that way. Its sugars come from the tree right up until the moment it is ready, and once the stem is cut that supply stops for good.

So an underripe fig will soften slightly and it will go off, but it will never get sweeter. This is the single most important fact about growing figs, and it is why patience at the end of the season is worth more than anything you do earlier. It is also why shop figs so often disappoint: they have to be picked firm to survive transport, and firm is another word for unfinished.

Do not pick a batch to ripen indoors before a forecast cold snap. They will not ripen. If frost is coming, pick only what already shows the ripe signs and use the rest green, cooked.

The signs of a ripe fig

Color alone is unreliable, because figs vary from green through brown to near black when ripe and the color often arrives days before the sugar does. Judge by posture and feel instead. A ripe fig hangs, a green one points.

The last swelling happens fast. A fig can sit at nearly full size for two or three weeks doing nothing visible, then soften and ripen within 48 hours. In the ripening season, check the tree every day rather than every few days.

Picking and handling

Ripe figs bruise if you look at them hard, and the skin tears where it touches. Handle each one once if you can.

1. Pick in the morning, but not too early Once the dew has dried and before the heat, the fruit is firmest and keeps best. Figs picked in the afternoon heat go soft within hours.
2. Take the stem, not the fruit Hold the short stalk and bend it upwards until it separates, or cut it with snips leaving a quarter inch (5 mm) of stem attached. Pulling on the body of the fig tears the skin and the fruit sours the same day.
3. Wear gloves if you are picking a lot The latex from stems and the fine hairs on fig leaves irritate skin, and the reaction is much worse in sunlight. Long sleeves are worth it for a big pick.
4. Lay them in a single layer Use a shallow tray, not a bucket. Stacked figs crush the ones underneath, and the juice from one split fruit spoils everything it touches.
5. Sort as you pick Anything split, sour smelling, or with insects at the eye goes straight into a separate container. One souring fig in a tray will taint the rest overnight.

Two harvests, months apart

If your tree carries brebas, the year gives you two quite different pickings. The early crop ripens in early summer on last year's bare wood, produces fewer and larger fruit, and tastes milder and more watery. The main crop starts in late summer and runs until the cold stops it, with smaller, denser, much sweeter fruit arriving a few at a time over several weeks.

Judging them takes the same signs, but the timing feels different. Brebas hang on shoots with no leaves near them and are easy to see, so it is tempting to pick them early. Main crop figs hide under large leaves, and the usual mistake is not finding them until they are overripe. Once the main crop starts, lift the leaves and look along the whole length of each new shoot.

The green figs left at the end of the season

Every autumn ends with a tree carrying fruit at every stage, and what you do with them depends on size. Figs still smaller than a hazelnut when the cold arrives are next year's breba crop. Leave those on the tree; they are supposed to be there and they will overwinter on the wood.

Larger green figs, from grape sized upwards, will not survive the winter and will not ripen. Pick them off. Leaving them costs the tree nothing much, but they rot on the branch and become a source of disease, and they make it harder to see the real brebas when you come to prune. The ones you remove are perfectly usable green, pickled or cooked in syrup, though that is a different food from a ripe fig.

Keeping a glut, and keeping a record

A ripe fig lasts two or three days, and that is being optimistic. In the fridge, in a single layer and uncovered, you get perhaps five days at the cost of some flavor, so bring them back to room temperature before eating. For anything longer, figs freeze well whole on a tray then bagged, dry well in warm dry weather or a dehydrator at around 135F (57C) for eight to twelve hours, and make excellent jam because their low acidity is easily corrected with lemon.

Record the date of the first ripe breba, the date of the first ripe main crop fig, and the date of your last pick, along with a rough count or weight. Over three seasons those three dates tell you exactly how long your ripening window really is, which is the number that decides how hard you can prune next winter.