Giant Figs Don't Have To Come from Giant Fig Trees

Q. I have Patrick Giant fig tree. Is it the same as Texas giant? If they are different, which one produces bigger fruits under the same conditions?

A. I have never grown any of the so-called giant figs because they never interested me much. I focus more on the “taste” of the fruit rather than its size. I have grown about 15 to 20 different varieties in the Mojave Desert climate but none of them were marketed as “giant”.

            I have harvested figs from fig trees that were quite large. I am quite certain this was from the “Briba” or first crop, not the main crop.

            I believe the reason they were so large is because there were fewer fruit because of winter pruning. So, the fruit remaining got quite large. The fewer fruit on a tree, the larger fruit will become. The amount of "food" produced by a tree has more to do with the number of leaves, their size, and percentage of leaves in full sunlight.

            My experience is that smaller fruit have more flavor than large fruit. And smaller fruit are usually more nutritious. This is because the minerals and nutrients in the fruit are more concentrated.

            So large -sized fruit have never been particularly attractive to me. To me, large -sized fruit is more about "bragging rights" than flavor.