120. Godfather Figs, Coastal Ecology, and Really Old Rocks w/ Phil D'Angelis

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What happens when scientific curiosity meets ancestral connection? Phil DeAngelis, founder of Phil's Figs and coastal geologist, takes us on a journey that weaves together seemingly unrelated passions into a life of purpose and discovery.

Phil's story begins in Pennsylvania, where gardening was simply part of life in his Italian-American and German-American household. Following the expected corporate path after college, he worked in marketing for Zipcar while an undercurrent of scientific curiosity continued to pull at him. A transformative trip to Italy not only connected him with his heritage but introduced him to fresh figs for the first time—awakening memories of his great-grandfather's cherished fig tree that had been ceremoniously wrapped each winter to survive Philadelphia's cold.

The podcast explores how Phil's mounting fascination with figs coincided with his decision to leave corporate life and pursue graduate studies in geoscience. With remarkable candor, he describes the humbling experience of returning to school, the challenges of scientific writing, and the painstaking research of collecting foraminifera from deep ocean sediments to study climate change events.

We delve into the fascinating geology of East Coast barrier islands—remnants of ancient Appalachian Mountains—and how Phil's work with coastal plant species helps determine environmental boundaries within inches of elevation. The conversation shifts to the extraordinary world of figs, their ancient relationship with humanity dating back to Mesopotamia, and their unique reproductive cycle involving specialized wasps.

Whether you're a science enthusiast, plant lover, or simply someone wondering about different career paths, Phil's story reminds us that curiosity is the greatest guide. As he says, "Play the long game and just keep going on something that truly interests you. If you don't know, go out and start trying stuff."

Ready to experience the incomparable taste of a fresh fig or learn why coastal plants matter? This episode will inspire you to let your passions—however diverse—lead the way.

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Planthropology is written, hosted, and produced by Vikram Baliga. Our theme song is "If You Want to Love Me, Babe, by the talented and award-winning composer, Nick Scout. Midroll tunes are by Rooey.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What is up?
Plant people it's time oncemore for the Plantthropology
podcast, the show where we diveinto the lives and careers of
some very cool plant people tofigure out why they do what they
do and what keeps them comingback for more.
I'm Vikram Baliga, your hostand your humble guide in this
journey through the greensciences and, as always, my
friends, I am so excited to bewith you today.
Y'all, I have to say, I do alot of these and I have done so

(00:30):
many of these and I nerd out onevery episode to some extent,
but for some reason, there isjust something about my guest
today, phil DeAngelis, that Inerded out so hard on this.
We talked about everything fromscience and graduate school and
what those experiences are liketo having different paths in
life, graduate school and whatthose experiences are like to
having different paths in life.
We talked about coastal ecologyand barrier islands and rocks
and soft rock and hard rockgeologists which I didn't know

(00:52):
was a thing and I'm glad that Ido and we spent a lot of time
talking about figs and thehistory of figs and his business
, phil's Figs, and how he talksabout figs online.
All figs all the time.
It's figs all the way downY'all.
This is such a good episode.
It's so much fun.

(01:13):
Phil is genuinely one of thekindest, nicest, coolest guys I
know.
He's one of the co-hosts on theGarden Party podcast, which I'm
actually on tonight as I recordthis, and yesterday as you're
listening to this.
If you listen to it, the daydrops.
But I've gotten to talk to hima ton times and it was just such
a cool experience getting tolearn about his history and his
past and all of the things he'sgotten to do because he's gotten
to do so much.

(01:34):
So, whether you're into surfingor rocks, or figs or wasps or a
little bit of all of that,you're going to love this
episode.
So grab a cup of coffee and afig and you'll understand why
later and settle yourself rightin for episode 120 of the
Plantthropology Podcast with myfriend, phil DeAngelis man Phil.

(02:20):
So first off, thanks forjumping in last minute for
today's episode.
I'm so excited to talk to you.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
I'm stoked to be chatting on a podcast with you
again, man, it's such aprivilege to have us together on
the Garden Party.
I was having such FOMO when youwere out at Smithtown with all
the Garden Party people andalumni I should say.
And so, yeah, when you invitedme on, I was like great, I get
to nerd out even more on plants.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Let's do it, yeah, no .
So we like we were definitelymissing you there, and so, for
the listeners that have beenaround for a while, our last
episode was actually DestinNowak, and so Texas garden guy
and I and gardening with Des andMichael from Smith's Garden
Town all hung out.
It was hot and sweaty out there, man, like I tell you what.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
That's how you know you won is when you left the
place hot and sweaty.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yeah, I think by the end of the day we're all just
like, oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
That's awesome, and you didn'tget any damages from wiping out
on the cart that I saw.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
I think I still have a little bruise and I'll link
that video for anyone who hasn'tseen it.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
But yeah, destin and I had what we thought was a
really good idea for writing.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Oh yes, greenhouse, of course those are the only
ideas you have and at some pointhe let the intrusive thoughts
win and it was like what if Irode the car too and physics
said no physician or physicslets you know what you were
capable of.
Yes, yes, right, ourlimitations.
Like it was fun though.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Oh man, it looked like so much fun Nice man.
All good.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Well, again, thanks for being on.
So introduce yourself.
You have you know aninteresting diversity of things
that you do, but tell us aboutwhere you grew up, what you
liked and enjoyed growing up,how you got into plants, all
that kind of stuff oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
I grew up so I was born in Philadelphia and when I
was about four I moved out toLancaster, pennsylvania, and if
any of you guys know or don'tknow, it's Amish country,
central of Pennsylvania and it'sin the Susquehanna Valley and
it's so funny.
I was just used to seeingfarmland but I was also used to

(04:26):
being close to all the majorcities, so like, yeah, I had
cornfields but I could hop on atrain and be in downtown
Manhattan in two hours and and Ijust I grew up that typical
suburban life.
But it was like a developmentthat was converted from a farm
and next door horses and I alsohad three you know all the bikes
on the driveways of all myfriends' houses.
So that was kind of my growingup.

(04:48):
I played a lot of sports.
I was a very high energy kid.
My dad's side is very Italian,all Philadelphia.
My mom's side is she's adaughter of the revolution all
the way back centralPennsylvania, from the first
Germans that came over in thelate 1600s.
So both sides gardened, whichis really cool.
So gardening was just kind ofsomething that was like of

(05:09):
course you had a tomato plant,of course you had herbs, of
course you had you know all thethings.
And my grandmother was a personthat said you know, go outside
and I'll hose you downafterwards.
And so I grew up at mygrandparents' like that.
I grew up in my parents' houselike that, and that was really
good for a high energy kid wholiked to climb trees and stuff.
But I was also I was definitelyraised from a garden point of

(05:32):
view and a nature point of viewthat I knew where food came from
and I didn't realize thatpeople didn't know until I got
older and when I started livingin cities and things so like, I
ended up finishing high school Iwent to Skidmore College for
undergrad and I studiedmanagement and business and I
studied geoscience and that'swhere I really got into the

(05:52):
earth sciences and climatologyspecifically, and so in sediment
records how we could seeindications of climate change
and even whether it was in treerings through dendrochronology
or if it was literally airbubbles in glacial ice to look
at oxygen and carbon dioxidefluctuations.

(06:13):
And I also studied management,business, because I was quite
the extrovert too and I followeda lot of shoulds in life.
So, like you should do this,you should go into a city and
get that office.
And I worked in sales andmarketing for Zipcar for like
three, four or five years.
Oh, wow, yeah, I started asinside sales for Zipcar, doing

(06:34):
business to business.
Before that, I did hire a yearof environmental hazardous waste
and I hated it and I was likeeveryone's running from the acid
that spilled and I had to puton the Tyvek suit and go in and
clean it up and I was like thisis not for me.
I get it, I'll end up goingback to science and using
hydrochloric acid a lot, butit's not one of the heavy acids

(06:55):
you know and.
But I moved away from that andthere was a really cool
inflection point when Idiscovered farmer's markets as a
young adult in Cambridge,massachusetts, where I was
living at the time and all of asudden they're like here's.
I grew up eating Swiss chard andbroccoli rabe with beans and
potatoes that my dad made andcalled it beans and greens, and

(07:15):
he's like this is the healthiestthing you can eat.
You'll be healthier your wholelife if you eat it, and it costs
you four bucks.
And I was like that's amazing.
And so I started going to farmwith Mark.
It's like oh, I have thesethings.
And I moved into a really sweetapartment with my now wife
Grace.
We've been together for almost20 years but we met in college
and she and I had a garden spaceout back and I saw someone

(07:37):
planting.
I was like I want to garden.
This sounds amazing.
And I was into homebrewing beerat the time.
So the first thing I plantedwere hops oh, wow.
And every spring you can buyrhizomes of hops and I bought
Cascade and Chinook, which aregreat for IPA varieties, and
there's so many more variantsout there now in the brewing
world, but they grow great inthe New England because they

(07:59):
love like a Germanic climate,and so that started me and I was
like, well, if I have all thisother space, then I'm going to
start growing all these otherplants.
And then during that first yearI was doing the business stuff
and I had missed science.
I was still missing science foryears and years.
But when I was, I traveledEurope and I did my Italian
genealogy.
So I knew where my greatgrandparents were from in

(08:22):
Pennsylvania.
But I decided to go with mybuddy, john, who also has an
Italian side.
We went to Italy and I foundout where my family was from in
Italy and we can talk about that, I guess in the second half of
why I started Bill's Figs.
But it's a huge inflection pointwhen I went out there and I had
fresh figs for the first timeand I grew up with stories that
my dad and my uncles and myaunts told me about my

(08:44):
great-grandfather's fig treethat he ceremoniously wrapped
every year in Philadelphiabecause it was a little too cold
, it wouldn't survive winter.
So they wrapped it.
It was a cutting that theybrought over from Italy and it
had this whole big, almostreligious aspect to this fig
tree that was coveted and I waslike I've never had a fig.
I didn't eat my first fresh figtill I'm 38 now, so I was 25.

(09:04):
And as soon as I ate it, I waslike that's a fig.
And then my friend's dad'sthird cousin, aurelia, was like
yeah, that's a fig.
Haven't you had a fig before?
And I was like no.
And he's like, oh well, they'reeverywhere here.
And I was like I can see that.
So, um, when I came back, I'mlike I'm going to find a fig
tree.
And then I found a place inBoston Roslindale it's now

(09:25):
closed called figtreesnet, andto Morlaix I got my first two
fig trees.
And if anyone knows me and allmy friends know me that I can't
just do something casually, Ihave to go all in.
And all of a sudden I was like,well, wait, can't you propagate
figs?
My dad told me I could.
Okay, so I'm going to look down.
Oh, there's a forum, oh,there's two forums, there's

(09:46):
three forums.
Oh, there's a place that sellsscions.
You could order directly fromUC Davis's fig repository as
well, back in the day I don'tknow if they still do it, but or
there's like a third party.
Then I got these cuttings.

(10:06):
We shall try again.
And this was about 2012, 2012.
And I just had these two figtrees I wanted to show off to my
dad.
I was like dad, I got him one.
We got these fun littlevarieties.
And when I was living in Boston,I got engaged to my wife, took
a promotion as an accountexecutive for Zipcar in their DC
office, lived there eightmonths, had a garden in this

(10:26):
sweet apartment there, saw figtrees growing in DC.
I was like they can grow in theground here.
That's amazing.
Slowly met more and more peoplein the fig world.
I was becoming this likeenthusiast, if you will, this
collector.
And by 2015, I looked at my wifeand I was getting stressed at
work because I was a countyexecutive for Zipcar for
business, and I looked at allthese people starting their

(10:48):
businesses and working indifferent avenues and I go, I
want to do something that Ireally like to do and I had
always thought about I washitting this.
I was about 29.
I was giving myself a lot ofgrief of pursuing.
Do I want to go the businessroute or science?
And I said you know what F?
This Screw, this.
I am pulling the ripcord andI'm going back to school for

(11:10):
science.
And I got just gotten marriedto my wife.
Two months later I said I'mquitting my job and we're moving
in with my new in-laws for ayear while I take prerequisites,
and everyone just was likesorry, what?
And I said you're doing whatnow?
Yeah, we're doing this now.
And I had a shot in the darkright, and I had been out of

(11:34):
undergrad long enough that Ineeded to take prereqs over
again.
And they weren't.
Geology is an interdisciplinaryhard science, so you use physics
, you use chemistry, you usecalculus for rate of change over
time and things like that, andphysics is important too in
different aspects.
And so I had to take a year ofeach of those and apply for grad

(11:54):
schools, find professors, findparts that I liked and was
interested in, and I had todrink the whole grad school
process out of a fire hose for ayear and I got it done.
I ended up really enjoyingphysics.
I ended up enjoying and here'sthe thing Professors can make or
break courses for you.
So anyone out there still findsa genuine interest in this.

(12:18):
You may have just not clicked,and I was fortunate enough to
click at a branch communitycollege campus outside
Pittsburgh, pennsylvania, whereI sat in the parking lot and I
said what the heck am I doingout here.
I just quit my job making goodmoney in the city, like with my
wife, and I'm here living intheir basement studying and I'm

(12:38):
going to this branch campus andI was like we're just going to
do this one day at a time.
If it doesn't work out in ayear we'll reassess.
And eight months went by.
I had some good conversationswith some professors at a few
universities.
Some of them weren't taking onnew students, which is tough
because I like their research.

(12:58):
Some of them were taking on andsome just weren't clicking.
But I matched with ProfessorSharon Hoffman at UNC Wilmington
and she did paleoceanographyand she did deep ocean sediment
and I liked that.
And deep ocean sediment becauseit was associated with changes

(13:20):
in ocean currents during abruptclimate change events, in ocean
currents during abrupt climatechange events, and so how abrupt
climate change can actuallyoffset things like the Gulf
Stream and North Atlanticcurrent and kind of shut them
down.
And I focused a lot on thiscurrent called or it's a
mechanism called the AMOC orAtlantic Meridional Overt

(13:41):
circulation, and that is wheresurface cold waters fall and
descend due to density and dueto cold temperatures and
salinity and they become deepwater currents that run across
the ocean bottom, and so Icollected sortable silt to
determine the rate of thosecurrents.
And I also looked atforaminifera different species,

(14:03):
whether they're pelagic orbenthic Pelagic meaning they're
in the water column, versusbenthic on the seafloor.
And I collected those for halfof my grad school experience
under a microscope and then forthe last 10 days I ground them
all up and I threw them througha mass spectrometer and I looked
at the isotopes of oxygen andcarbon and those isotopes

(14:26):
determine the type of water thatwas floating in at that time,
whether they came out of icebergdischarge or not, and that is.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
Can I just tell you that?
No, no, no.
I just have to tell you, like,that experience and the way you
describe it is like I spent allthis time sampling and I looked
at them under a microscope andthen I spent days grinding
samples, Like that is such ascience.
It's so science, Masters.
It's almost like a rite ofpassage where it's like here's

(14:58):
this incredibly tedious thing.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
You have to do this month and a year, year of doing
that and being like and you knowwhat.
It could have all just been aflop and I would have been like
had to start all over again andI wouldn't have gotten the
results that I was looking forall the research I had done
going into it.
That and my advisor being like,keep doing this way.
Right method sections are soimportant for consistency and I

(15:24):
listen, I got destroyed inscientific writing.
Grad school taught me how towrite through hell or high water
.
I'm a math person, so readingand writing in the science
community is a practice and Ican say that on the other side
of it, it just is a veryhumbling experience.
There are times I had papersthat had more red ink than black

(15:47):
ink on them and looking back itwas all okay, but at the time
it was like a five-engine firealarm, you know.
But you come out the other endand all your professors are
hugging you and like what justhappened, but you feel so
empowered.
So I'm very humbled by graduateschool and I had some really
key professors that were verysupportive in the process and so

(16:10):
that ties back into that.
But looking back, I loved whatI did and I actually got being
at UNC Wilmington we had a hugecoastal program.
Center for Marine Science was areally great facility for me
because it also introduced me toI did offshore deep ocean
currents, where there's a lot ofbarrier island geomorphological
mechanisms that are happeningjust on our coastline.

(16:32):
That I find extremelyfascinating and when I graduated
I actually got in with acoastal engineering firm that
literally did beach islandmonitoring with is a unique
mechanism that we have on theEast Coast of the United States
that only exists in a few partsof the world, which is a barrier
island system, and all thesebarrier islands are all sediment

(16:55):
runoff from the old AppalachianMountains and this kind of
breakdown of the whole EastCoast Because once upon a time
the Appalachians were as tall asthe Himalayas or the Andes,
right, but on a geologictimescale it's hard to
conceptualize that because oftectonic plate shifting over
time and so everything's kind oferoded over time and you have

(17:19):
these big watersheds that havehelped carry all this sediment
out and it has fluctuated up anddown during sea level rise and
fall for eons, right, and so wehave this great, huge collection
of sediment that runs frombasically New Jersey to Miami,
or I should say Long Island toMiami, and only places like

(17:40):
Italy.
You have that kind of discharge,like the barrier islands around
Venice, on the Adriatic partsof Bangladesh and a few other
places.
But doing deep ocean sedimentresearch.
I truly fell in love with thecoastline, especially in North.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
Carolina.
This is just an aside, but Iwas in Maine recently for just a
couple of days.
Oh cool, I wanted to spendweeks there because it's
gorgeous and it was 100 degreeshere and like 60 there, so that
you know.
But I was.
You know, I'm used to Gulf ofMexico beaches.
You know where they're sandy.
It's usually a fine sand.

(18:13):
We've got some rocky beaches,but they're sort of few and far
between.
And then flying into Maine, youknow, over the coast, I was
like, oh, these are giant rocks,granite outcroppings.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
Yeah, a huge part of the East Coast and what you see
where the rocks stop and thesand barrier islands begin, is
the furthest extent ofglaciation on the United States.
So from glacial maximum goesall the way out and you can see
it.
So you see Maine, new Hampshire, cape Cod these are all like

(18:46):
scoured geological formationsfrom iceberg advances.
And then you see it aroundNantucket, martha's Vineyard,
come down the coast and then youhit the tip of Long Island
right there at Montauk and thoseare all rock outcroppings and
it travels down acrossPennsylvania.
Actually, I learned from myglaciology professor once.
He told me that SouthernPennsylvania and Maryland is

(19:07):
great farmland because you getall that discharge from the
maximum glacial extent.
So all that runoff, all thoseminerals, all that stuff got
deposited there on top andPennsylvania has actually got a
really rich geologic history.
I like the coastline but otherpeople can speak to it sometime.
I hope you find some or I cantry to nerd out with you.
But yeah, glaciation stop thereand that's when you get to all

(19:29):
the barrier island stuff that'sfascinating.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
And you know once those things that you think
about it.
You're like, oh yeah, that thatmakes sense, like I get it
Right, but it doesn't.
Like you wouldn't just likerealize that, right, you
wouldn't just think of that, butlike knowing that, yeah, that's
where the glaciers were.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
And it's like proving that, like it's this the
scientific method, hundreds ofyears, to prove that, with
research all the way down,people just like, hey, this
looks right.
You can't just say that inscience no, that's exactly right
.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
Right and that's a good point too, but like but you
know what so much good sciencestarts with?
That observation of like, thisfeels right, but I have to make
sure that it is right.
And so, like we see these things, that observationally we find
like this glacier would fit here, these continents would fit
together all this stuff and thenwe work the process and I think

(20:22):
, like so much of good scienceis that curiosity and that
wonder, yeah, that I feel likesometimes gets lost in the
process of science.
Both are necessary, yeah, right, we have to do both.
We have to publish, we have todo all that stuff.
But I think the best scientistsI know and the best science

(20:44):
educators I know are justcurious at heart, right, they're
inquisitive at heart.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
When you let the curiosity flow and you let the
ego go when people challenge you, because you're realizing it's
just because everybody wants tofind the closest, most accurate
answer.
It helps a lot and thecuriosity piece is beautiful and
there's so many aspects ofscience that you can find your
little gem to jump into ifanyone's curious about being in
science.

(21:09):
And it's so true, like lettingyour curiosity flow, like
literally just like looking at alandscape, touching the sand,
being like how did this get likethis?

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Taking a step back, you're absolutely right, man,
weird, like I don't even knowwhat to call it smattering of
things that are true and reallyinteresting in between all of
this like incredible nonsense.
Right, like there's all of thisstuff out there.
So, from a geologicalperspective, like living in that
part of the world or thecountry and studying it, you

(21:51):
know, you hear all these thingslike the Appalachian Mountains
are older than like anything.
Like they're one of the oldestlike geological formations,
definitely in North America, butlike maybe in the world.
Like is that true?
Like how old are thesemountains?

Speaker 2 (22:03):
There are oh man, there's a few, that kind of
reach.
So everyone talks about Pangeabeing the supercontinent that
wasn't the first supercontinentit had before that there were.
Tectonic plate movement is sucha huge factor in and it's such
a huge factor for creating,sequestering carbon, creating
greenhouse gases, like it has alot of mechanisms that people
will debate like, oh, that's whyglobal warm is not

(22:25):
anthropogenic and I'm like, yeah, I don't know about that.
That's the whole debate is thatthese things are anthropogenic.
But like that's when I tellpeople jokingly, like majority
of our lifetime or majority ofthe Earth's existence has been
without ice caps, but on a humantimescale we've only known it
with ice caps for our existence.
But circling back and I mayhave tangible flighted too soon

(22:48):
there, oh, that's fine.
There are some billion-year-oldformations and I don't remember
the plate because I'm more of asoft rock guy and there's
definitely some hard rock guysand that's the huge split.
We call them soft.
You're a soft rock which islike sediment, and then you have
hard rock which is like all theway back to the beginning of

(23:09):
time or like igneous, all thoseguys.
I had a professor that was alsoa sedimentologist but he also
studied um impact events likethe Punta de Event in the
Jurassic period.
So you have to and I'm going tohave to talk again because
there's so many aspects ofgeology, which is why I love it,
and I also love the fact thatit's so tangible, which is also

(23:31):
probably why you like your fieldof study as well, because you
can see the science right there.
It's just not on a sheet ofpaper and I really like like
geology was great for me.
If anyone has ADHD, I have it.
It's great.
It's tough at times but, man,it's great Because once you
start to love yourself moreabout it, because geology
allowed me to get out there, seeit, feel it, absorb it and kind

(23:54):
of of run with it, and sothere's so many aspects of
science that cater to those, ourtypes of brains.
But I hope I wrapped, I wasable to wrap that all together.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
Yeah, no, that's really interesting.
Like I just think that I havenever like formally studied
geology, but I've always beenfascinated by it.
Fascinated because like it isso fundamental to one.
Our existence on this planet,yes, Like the everything that
exists, and I tell my studentsthis, that like we owe our
entire existence to this.
Like you know, if you were tolook at the earth, like a beach

(24:27):
ball, this, like microns thicklayer of soil.
Yeah, absolutely, and rock thatsupports everything that we do
and it's fascinating, and rockthat supports everything that we
do.
And it's fascinating and, likeyou know, I live on this weird
geological formation.
We call it the CaprockEscarpment or the Llano Estacado
, so this big flat mesa up here.
Okay, so we sit about athousand meters above sea level

(24:50):
where I am and this formationruns some 250 miles north to
south and then 120, 150 east towest, and we have a pretty much
a uniform 1% slope over thewhole thing.
Oh my gosh, it is about as flatas you can imagine, like a

(25:10):
super mesa.
Yeah, it's huge, super Mesa.
Yeah, it's huge.
And you know the Permian Basin,the inland sea that used to
fill the Permian Basin and hasdeposited all this oil and all
of this stuff.
I think we were like kind of onthe coast.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
Oh, yeah, I'm sure I mean you got to think there's,
during the Cretaceous too,there's a huge sea that went
right through, like what we knowis like Utah and like Moab, and
those lakes, those salt lakes,are like remnants of it, right?
So if you start to look, youstart to see everything.
And that's what's really coolabout geology and the number.
The first law of geology is thelaw of superposition and that

(25:48):
is older things are below andyounger things are above.
And we actually were able thegeologic record used fossils to
help determine timelines.
Use, there's differenttechniques now, like you use a
lead dating and argon dating in,like zircon crystals, and that
can be accurate.
Result uh, you can do carbondating, but it's not very old

(26:09):
people like carbon data doesn'twork.
I'm like, yeah, it doesn't workafter 26 000, but that is so
young on a um, on a geologicscale.
Right, I used I with my softrock, my climatology.
Like I think ice cores only goback 400,000 years and the
Vostok core goes back maybe800,000 and that's still a blip,

(26:30):
you know?
Yeah, I think if you think thatthe dinosaurs went out at 64
million and the Permian-Triassicboundary was 275 million,
that's nothing.
And yeah, I find it sobeautiful because you can see it
right there.
A lot of my field trips were onthe sides of highways and you

(26:51):
pull out and you're like there'sa frozen reef with trolobytes
and corals and sponges and it'sall stored there.
If you know where to look, andeven in soft rock systems like
what I study Bayer Islands youcan see the migration of the
islands themselves over timefrom ocean currents, that pure
raw energy, which is really cool.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
That's really interesting.
Pure raw energy, which isreally cool.
That's really interesting.
So you were mentioning beforewe started recording that you
worked too with different plantspecies, looking at sea levels
and things.
Is that correct, I do?

Speaker 2 (27:24):
So I worked in coastal engineering for about
four years after graduate schooland it was fascinating.
I got to write monitoringreports on how sand migrated and
we built dune systems and firstof all, dune systems are really
.
They're successful because ofthe endoskeleton created by
rhizomes and roots of plantsright and the matrix of various

(27:48):
species.
We'll tie back to that.
When I left coastal engineeringbecause I was traveling too
much, I wanted to be home withmy kids, I had the opportunity
to join in with the state ofNorth Carolina at the Department
of Environmental Quality and Iwork for the Division of Coastal
Management and we areresponsible for anything within
75 feet of the coastal zone, orthat is the coastal zone of

(28:10):
normal high water and that isour AEC.
We determine the coastalwetland line.
We also determine the normalhigh water line using plant
species and we have 10designated plant species that we
use to determine those twoelevations.
And you can hire surveyors andcome out and do mean high water

(28:32):
and we can do our normal highwater with our plant species
Spartina alterniflora and you'reprobably falling within a few
inches of each other.
So it's kind of amazing how andyou can see speciation change
within six half a foot sixinches or more of probably five
different species before you'reactually exiting that flood zone

(28:53):
, because if you look at tidalzones, they average about four
feet.
But that is not the case.
You have neap tides, you haveking tides that can go five, six
feet, neap tides two, threefeet, but the normal tidal cycle
.
There are plants that like toget hit twice, which is a
semi-diurnal cycle.
That we do here on the EastCoast, and Alterniflora will

(29:14):
mark that line.
The second you leave that line,other species will start to
appear.
So then you have your BlackNeedle Rush, you'll have your
Scurpus Bull Rush, you'll haveSea Lavender, salicornia, what
are some of our other species,and it'll increase in elevation
all the way until you get toSpartina, patens.
And Patens doesn't want to betouched by saltwater, it just
want to be touched by saltwater,it just wants to like be misted

(29:35):
by it, and so that's generallyour first indication line of
where that saltwater intrusionstops.
And so you can go out and youcan map coastal areas just using
plant species, and it's kind of, and it's so distinct in some
areas it's incredible.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
That's fascinating and it makes sense, like from a
botanical perspective, from likea plant science perspective.
It makes total sense because somany of these plants have such
narrow sort of survival rangesand especially like you're
talking about, in coastal duneecosystems.
I think people don't understandhow delicate some of these

(30:13):
dunes are.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
Oh my God the dunes and oh sorry and the estuarine
systems is where we do a lot ofthose speciations too.
So I jumped sorry, I jumpedfrom the coastal side over to
the speciation of the water side, which is on the, on our
backwaters, creeks, people,places where people want to
build piers and docks andmarinas and they want to get rid
of them.
Here's the thing you need themfor the safety, for the

(30:37):
infrastructure of the island orthe land you're building on
along the coast.
Those plants are going toprotect you from hurricanes,
storms, erosion, all of it, andso our job with coastal
management is to educate andcreate options that help both
the homeowners or the businessesand the marinas and the plant

(30:57):
species themselves.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
Yeah, Well, and that, yeah, fascinating and, like you
know, there's some cool videosout there talking about, like a
hurricane, surge protection andwhat you get from, like
mangroves and different thingsin different parts of the world.
Right, these coastal these andthey're not aquatic plants but
plants that like wet feet thatcan go and hold everything
together and looking at thedifferences between, like, what

(31:21):
a storm surge will do with theseintact ecosystems that have
evolved to tolerate that.
Oh yeah, and the amount ofdamage we see when they don't
exist.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
And the ability to rebound and rebuild places after
a storm has gone through.
It's amazing, and if you letthe natural system handle it
itself, it'll bounce back injust a few years.
It's kind of incredible, butit's a beautiful thing to see
them do their job and be wherethey want to be in such an acute
elevation or environment thatcan change Like you can move

(31:57):
five feet and all of a suddenit's a totally different
environment.
I read this.
I don't know if you ever readthe Sixth Extinction, but they
were talking about differentmicroclimates.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
I haven't, but it's on my list.
You know, for when I need to bea little sadder, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yes, you need to be accepting of being a little sad
when you read it, but it talksabout in rainforests, where you
can move up you know howevermany feet in elevation and the
species are completely differentand they don't want to cross.
But they talk about that acutespeciation as a flourishment of

(32:33):
different species and abundanceof them as a good thing.
And when you have a lot ofhybridization, that is actually
a sign of an extinction eventbecause they can't survive in
these changing environments.
Only hybridization can.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
You know, I never have thought about it in those
terms, but that's fascinatingand that also makes a lot of
sense because you know we thinkabout like.
So I live in a prairie ecosystem, right yeah, which are also
surprisingly delicate ecosystemsand diverse and like absolutely
complex ecosystems and you see,when we look at species loss
and the takeover of, like,certain grass species or things

(33:06):
like that, or hybridized grassspecies, like a lot of times
we'll say, okay, now we've gotthis like bluegrass, this
specific bluegrass, is thathappening at all with grasses?
Oh yeah, oh yes, wow,absolutely, and we'll see that,
like you know, these veryspecific species that have close
evolutionary relationships withinsects and animals and other

(33:27):
plants are gone and they'rebeing taken over by either
hybrid species or specific, likeopportunistic species and
things like that.
But that makes so much sense,just at different levels, I
don't know striations in aaquatic ecosystem or a beach
ecosystem, a dune ecosystem orwhatever.
That's really fascinating andscary.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
I don't know some of both.
It's scary, I mean, for thegeologic, timescobar islands are
very young and very dynamic.
Unfortunately, unfortunately,we built these static towns on
top of these moving islands andso now it's like a bandana on a
bullet hole to do a lot of thesedredge projects and try to do a
lot of plantings to try torecover, when a lot of these

(34:09):
islands want to roll and moveand the species move with it.
But sea level rise isinevitable too, right, so that's
happening.
But I think the adaptability ofthese dynamic islands is seen
in the plant species, which ispretty cool, and I'm glad I
could talk about other plantswith you that I do for work.

(34:30):
Yeah, no, that's fascinating tome.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
I could talk, I mean, honestly, we could do a whole
episode on just this and wemight sometime, if you're
willing to come back and likereally deep dive some of this
stuff.
Yeah, because I again, I thinkit's fascinating and I think
it's important that peopleunderstand some of these things,
even if, like, it's not everydetail.
Like you know, the decisions wemake, from where we put a town

(35:08):
to I don't know, you've probablyseen these videos of like
people on the beach and there'slike an inland little I don't
know river or pond or lake orwhatever, and then the ocean and
they go and they dig a trenchfrom like it's cool to watch,
but I'm thinking from like anecological standpoint.
I'm like, no, don't do that,stop doing that.
Like, like that's supposed towatch.
But I'm thinking from like anecological standpoint.
I'm like, no, stop, don't dothat, stop doing that.
Like, like that's supposed tobe there.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
Yeah, for sure things happen hurricanes.
We're in a hurricane like tellyou what?
Barrier islands are greatbuffers for hurricanes, but not
when you necessarily build onthem, which is kind of tough
because everyone's beachfront.
I get it that there there areso many impacts where you could
dig a small trench and have arunoff like that that you could
have one storm event and thequanta, the quantity of energy
that the ocean can produce isinsane, even on the east coast,

(35:44):
where we don't get the sameswell you do for all you surfers
in california.
I'm a big surfer, so that's whyI love the coastline too, but
you could have one bignor'easter storm that can wash
that whole trench away, noproblem.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
Yeah, yeah.
But at the same time you don'twant to uproot anything that's
been in place there that helpssustain that infrastructure
building.
Yeah, that's really fascinating.
Again, I'm watching the timebecause I think I've got about a
million more questions, but Iwant to be conscious of your
time, so let's, I think that'sactually a good sort of pin to

(36:17):
put in that for now.
Again, I may have morequestions here in a minute or
we'll do a follow-up, but let'stake a break real quick and when
we come back, I want to talkabout your fig business Phil's
Figs yeah, man, and how you gotinto that side of it and sort of
married the business part ofyour brain with the science part
of your brain, and then aboutsome of the content creation you
do, because you do some reallycool stuff.
Thank you, we'll take a quickbreak and we'll come right back.

(36:39):
Perfect, well, hey there,welcome to the mid roll.
So happy to have you here Y'all.
As much as we talked aboutrocks and sand and sediment and
stuff in the first half of thisepisode, we talked just as much
or more in the second half aboutfigs and I.
I cannot explain to you howmuch fun it is.
So just just get ready.
A couple of things if my voicesounds weird and if it sounded

(37:01):
weird on the recording it'sbecause I've been sick and
that's just how it is.
I usually don't get a summercold, but I've been traveling
anyway.
Thanks so much for listening toplanthropology and being a part
of what we do here.
Thanks for supporting the show.
If you want to find more waysto support the show, head over
to planthropologypodcastcom andcheck out old episodes.
Find the link to merch, scoresome cool swag.

(37:23):
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(37:43):
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(38:03):
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(38:24):
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at plant apology pod at gmailcomif you have any comments.

(38:46):
Okay, let's talk figs.
All right, you mentioned in thefirst part of the episode about
your love for figs and honestly, I hadn't realized you'd been
into it and doing it, as long asyou mentioned that you had.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
But let's talk about.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
Phil's figs.
You know you talked a littlebit about how that came to be,
but tell us all about it.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
I so, ok, I had been collecting figs and gardening
for what?
10,?
Okay, I had been collectingfigs and gardening for what?
10, 11, 12 years, watchingpeople on YouTube.
And when I left my job to taketime off to be with my family
because it was a travel heavyjob I was like I'm going to do a
case study.
I am for all you business peopleout there.
I am going to see what it'slike to start an LLC.

(39:32):
I'm going to see what it's liketo do like a business tax thing
.
I am going to put things outthat I had, that I really wanted
to see how a business wouldoperate, and I did it from a
place of.
I have to make it so simplethat I can obsess over it and be
like the product is verystraightforward, and that was

(39:54):
Fig Trees, because I was alreadyout here propagating and it
also gave me an excuse to tellmy wife that I was going to buy
a greenhouse and that was prettycool, and I actually, yeah, and
I, a few months later, afterstarting it all I actually this
is only two and a half years ago, a little over that I decided
like, okay, after all theseyears of growing figs and making

(40:15):
this little food forest in mybackyard, um, that I am going to
start a business with justthese fig trees.
And I was fortunate enough thatthe fig community has other
people that have done it.
So I could be like, well, hey,why don't I just try doing this?
And then, if I want to start myown business, well, I need some
sales channels or sales funnel.
So I wanted to create content.

(40:37):
And then the content got to beeducational, which I like to
talk to people, and I got tokind of describe from the purest
form possible you guys aregetting pure fill, maybe, like
I'm editing stuff, but it'sstill me like saying things to a
camera and I kept it small andacute, like just fix and
uncomfortable speaking to acamera, getting comfortable
writing about something, gettingcomfortable with myself, just
about something that I thoughtwas probably one of the nerdiest

(41:00):
things of all time.
But I'm excited too and justputting myself out there and
seeing if I could create abusiness and get a profit stream
and at the same time, engagewith everybody.
And it took off way faster andway better than I could have
ever imagined, and I think it'sjust because I'm coming from A

(41:21):
an organic place, and B aselfless place, like it's just
me and I'm just going to havefun with it, and I don't know
the most about figs out ofanybody, but I know enough that
I could talk about it and that'sokay with me.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
And I learn as I go.
Yeah, you know a lot more aboutfigs than I do and I haven't
well, no, but it's the truth.
Like we've done the gardenparty, you know, on and off I've
, I you're a consistent, youknow, host and I come on when I
can't.
I think I'm on tomorrowactually.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
Yeah, you are as we record this.
I might not make it because I'mgoing to be traveling back to
North Carolina.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
You can say Well, I'll try to talk about things
for you.
Thank you.
But like every time we're onand you start talking about, I'm
like I didn't know that andlike I learned a lot and that
that, for me, is so much fun.
Like there's a reason I havegotten back in education.
I ran a landscape company for acouple of years and I could
have kept doing that, but likeone, it was hot, I was tired,

(42:17):
but like there's something aboutjust being in this educational
world that I love learning stuff.
I get so excited about learningnew things and so like I enjoy
getting to learn about things.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
I just want to do like a quick intro on why figs,
if you're cool with that.
Yeah, please, figs, if you'recool with that.
Yeah, oh yeah, please, figshave.
They're basically the gatewayfruit tree to backyard orchards
or patio fruit.
I think because of their theyare.
They have a hint ofmediterranean climate vibes to
them because they need to betaken care of a little bit in
colder climates, but they willproduce in the first few years

(42:52):
of life.
You can propagate them quiteeasily.
They have a complex breedingsystem set up and we can talk
we'll talk about that.
But they also have an amazinghistory with humanity in
agriculture One of the firstthings ever cultivated, probably
for its propagation abilities,that you could just stick a

(43:12):
stick in the ground and have itwork.
But also like that they weregood enough, they were healthy
enough that the Roman army couldfeed off of them because of
their fiber and their vitaminnutrients and that they you
could bring them all over theworld.
They won't necessarily justtake over everything as an
invasive space, but they willgrow for you and produce for you

(43:33):
very prolifically and I think alot of.
And they're not even actually afruit, they're like it's a
really interesting food.
So that's why I love figs,because they just have a history
about them and every fig treehas a story.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
So how long have they been cultivated?

Speaker 2 (43:49):
Oh, go back to the Sumerians.
They're in Mesopotamia, one ofthe earliest records of
agriculture.
They are there and they areactually in store.
They found pieces of themstored away and if you go
through any scripture, anyhistorical record, figs have
always been present and that isamazing, kind of really started

(44:11):
in that Central Asia area tobegin with, which is a lot of
where civilization kind of gotestablished as well.
That's fascinating.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
And the fact that they are so adaptable.
You know it's hard to grow I'mnot going to say that just as a
period but it can be challengingto grow things.
Here where I live, it's hot anddry.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
You have a tough one.
I didn't realize it until youwere telling me about your yo-yo
weather.
I thought I had yo-yo weatherin the winter.
No, you got yo-yo weather.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
No, it's crazy.
We're very cold in the summerand very hot, I'm sorry, the way
around.
Very cold in the winter andvery summer and it's dry, it's
windy.
You know we had three foragehail blow through a couple of
days ago and tornadoes and allkinds of stuff.
But like figs are so tough,they're so tough, and my parents
have a couple in theirbackyards.

(44:58):
I think they have a Celeste anda brown turkey and I don't
remember what the third one isand every now and then they'll
freeze back to the ground Again.
We do get pretty cold, but thenthe next year they're back
Right and they're fine Right andeven, and they sleep Like it's
incredible, you know.
I'm trying to think of, likeanother fruit tree, that if I

(45:21):
froze it back to the ground.
One, that it would come back atall, but two, that I wouldn't
have to wait six years to get afruity kitten.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
Right and you could do that like and you're not
going to like people havegrafted before, but you don't
necessarily need to graft a figtree onto a rootstock of sorts.
So if it does die down to theground, you're getting true to
type in a lot of scenarios.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
Yeah Well, and so that's one question people ask
me is like how cold tolerant arethey?

Speaker 2 (45:52):
There are a few species that really and this is
kind of why Celeste and brownturkeys are so popular in hardy
Chicago is because they are easy, some of the easiest ones to
propagate, and they are also oneof the cold hardiest.
But what I tell people is thatall figs are good.
Some things are great, and solike anything.
The tastiest ones sometimes area little more of a diva to grow,
but not as much as you wouldthink.
You just get a few bases set upand I think I always recommend

(46:15):
a hearty Chicago type, whichBill from Off the Beat and Path
Nurseries.
He kind of really helped mealong on my fig journey back
about 10 years ago and kind ofjust, we always shoot messages
every once in a while.
Really, I learned from him tocall them a Mount Etna fig,
because there are differentvarieties that aren't just
called Hardy Chicago.
It was just so happened thatthis one survived in Chicago,
getting down to the ground everywinter and coming back up, and

(46:38):
he calls them like the greaterMount Etna figs because there's
some like Marseille Black hasthese club-like leaves that are
very indicative of these HardyChicago types.
In fact, the Hardy I have wasbrought over to Brooklyn.
It was called Brooklyn Park JDand it wasn't until I did
side-by-sides and comparisonslike oh, it's a hardy Chicago
fig, but there's differentsources of this and that's

(46:58):
pretty cool.
They all have nuances in and ofthemselves, but I feel like
just getting started with ahardy variety.
It's the first three years thatare tough to take care of, and
then after that it's like kindof like good luck killing them
after that, you know.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
Yeah, and you know we've had a little bit of
success for keeping them dyingback to the ground, like what
we've done a couple of times iswrapped them in like hog panel,
yeah, or you know some flexiblewire and shielded with straw or
something Perfect, just to givethem a little more inflation.
And it seems to work prettywell most of the time.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
Absolutely.
They're deciduous trees, sothey will.
When they are dormant they willbe relatively good.
I see dieback in two scenarioswhen it gets really cold and
that is when it gets well.
Three scenarios when it getsbelow into the single digits,
you're really putting them atrisk, or low teens.
But also if you prune thembefore the colder months they

(47:51):
have a harder time retaining anysort of heat and moisture, so
you'll see more vulnerable todie back then, which is a
problem for me as I sellcuttings all winter but I'm in a
warm enough place thatsometimes that's okay.
And then the other one is theyare used to a penetrating
climate.
That's a little more consistent.
So yo-yo temperatures can stressthem out.
In the spring they think, oh,it's spring and I'm going.

(48:13):
No, it's not spring, stop doingthat.
And I'm like, okay, we just gotto.
Fingers crossed, we're notgoing to get a late.
My last freeze date is April1st in zone 8B, wilmington here,
and so sometimes they'll wakeup the first week of March,
second week of March, becausewe'll get a bunch of 80 degree,
70, 80 degrees days in a row andI'm kind of freaking out.
So those scenarios can stressthem out.

(48:34):
So if you have them in a placewhere it gets warm early in the
year, but they can have a latefreeze that can hurt them a lot.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
Yeah, and that's like we're like a 7B Depends on the
year, almost between a 7B and an8A, but kind of right in there
there you go, and our averagefreeze is around tax day, you
know, april 10th, april 15ththere you go.
So, yeah, it's those, but then,yeah, we'll have a week in
February when it's 80 degreesand it's just like oh no, like
oh no.

Speaker 2 (49:02):
Everything's going to get hit.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
But yeah, please stop , because we get cool early
enough that most of our likefruit trees will fill their
chill requirement, and sothey're ready to go that first
warm week right, even when I'mlike one of those things also
sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (49:23):
I was gonna say like and it's another reminder that
8b wilmington, north carolina,isn't the same as like 8b
Vancouver, british Columbia, or8b, because things still like to
get hot in the summer and havesome warm weather, which is
probably why they do well foryou and recover well for you
where you are.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
Well, and we get really sweet things right.
The, that heat really builds upthe sugar content in.
Yes.
Yes, I was going to say free.
It's not exactly a free.
Let's talk about that becausethat's such a weird thing it's,
it's amazing, such.
So let's talk about thereproductive cycle of things,
because one well, okay, I don'twant to, I don't want to, like,
give away the punchline here.

(50:03):
Okay, but people kind of freakout about it i'm'm going to be
real honest.
When I tell people about howthat works, sometimes they're
like I'm sorry, what now?
So take us through thereproductive cycle of the fig.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
So any figs that a lot of us grow are generally
common figs.
There are a few other types.
There are the San Pedro figsand there are Smyrna figs.
San Pedro and Smyrna figsrequire caprification.
There is a fourth variety offig that is called a caprific.

(50:39):
That is the male fig.
So the other three I mentionedwere female figs.
The common figs will sell fruit.
They're not self-fertile,they're parthenocarpic, but they
will at least ripen for you anduse figs.
San Pedro's have two crops theyhave the Braba and some common
figs have two crops as well,which form on last year's wood

(51:00):
and then the new growth of theyear.
They'll push out fruit on thegreen growth and as it lignifies
it'll sit there and have fruitset, eventually ripen in the
fall.
Now it's summerna.
Figs and the main crop ofsampagios require a parasitic
wasp, the fig wasp, which islike blastophagia I don't know
the full name.
That is an acute relationshipwith the fig tree, and they

(51:26):
create colonies in the male figs, the male caprifigs, and these
are tiny wasps.
If you see a wasp on your fig,it's probably not it.
If you see tiny little dotsswarming you and you're in the
state of California or swarmingthe figs, that might be it.
Okay, they are living incolonies, in the male caprifigs,

(51:49):
the profiki, which is the firstcrop in the spring, and when
they are in those figs they havemale and female wasps.
The males will always hatchfirst and they will go around
and they will impregnate thefemales and then they will start
to burrow out of the fig thisis the male caper fig only and

(52:12):
they will not make it, they willget just to the hole in the
knife.
The female fig wasps will wakeup, crawl out that hole and set
out on a flight to go createanother colony, since they're
already pregnant, and they willgo and try to find other male
figs or caprifigs to create thecolony for this next phase again
.
And the problem is that theywill unfortunately go into

(52:37):
female figs and they will crawlin before the fig is ripe.
The eye is really small, sosmall that when the fig wasps
penetrate and they have reallynarrow heads, it's a very acute
speciation.
Go in, their wings will getripped off in the process.
They will try to lay eggs butthey can't.
They'll get absorbed by theenzymes that are in the fruit

(52:58):
before it's ripened and it'lldissolve the fig wasp, the
pollen that it brought alongwith it from the male fig will
caprify that fig and it canripen.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
Fascinating so yeah no, I think it's so cool.
And so what is the chemical inthere?
That enzyme, fison or somethinglike that?

Speaker 2 (53:18):
I do not know.
I may have known at one pointand forgotten it, but I'll have.
I'll look that up.
I have young kid dad brainright now, so oh, listen.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
I get it.
No, that's yeah, but there'slike an enzyme in there that
again dissolves and completelylike completely dissolves and
reabsorbs this female waspCorrect, the fruit Correct.
So what freaks people out iswhen they eat a fig and there's
crunchy bits in it and I try totell them those are not little
wasp bits, like that wasp isgone.

Speaker 2 (53:47):
Thing's gone.
I dare you to find that wasp,but you won't find it.

Speaker 1 (53:51):
It's tiny to begin with, and then it's totally
dissolved and absorbed back intothe plant, and so it's seeds or
it's other extra floral partsthat are in there that are
crunchy Like it's fine, You'refine.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
Totally fine.
In fact you're probably doinggreat because you're eating a
fresh fig and it's reallyhealthy for you, unless you're
allergic to latex.
So cause, they do have sap flowthat's like a latex flow that
can be an irritant, but when afig is fully ripe that sap will
retract from the fig itself asthe starches convert to sugars.
Hold that space and then whenyou cut one open man, it is just

(54:22):
it's hard to compare because itdoesn't have the same acidic
bite that a lot of fruits have.
In fact, they prefer to grow ina neutral to alkaline soil too,
and they just taste so syrupygood.
It's such a cool experience toeat a fig.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
They're very different, very different and
like, I think, a lot of people'sexperiences with, like a fig
Newton and I try to tell peoplethat is not the same thing, like
you're not, oh, I don't likefig Newtons.
I'm like, okay, fine, it's fine.
But like the experience and theflavors, like it's such a
complex, rich flavor and you'reright, there are very sweet, but
not like I don't want todescribe it.

(54:59):
They're not like cloyinglysweet, right, right, it's a
pleasant experience.
It's not like you're drinkingmaple syrup, it's different it's
different.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
It lingers in your mouth in a beautiful way, like I
think.
That's why I say like.
People are like what do you dowith your figs?
Truthfully, like, I grow figsbecause ripe figs don't have a
good shelf life.
If you're buying grocery figs,they're not going to taste the
same.
They're going to be okay,they're going to taste good
sometimes, but a truly ripe figoff the tree doesn't last that
long and it tastes incredible.
And I'll just eat them fresh.

(55:28):
And that's why so many peoplegrow figs is just because they
know how good a fresh fig tastes.
And you don't have to cook it,you don't have to do anything to
it, and I eat it with coffeeand it's like the perfect coffee
sweetener.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
That's awesome, but so you mentioned the common figs
, so are most like market figs,most of the ones you would buy
in the store are figs.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
Most of the ones you would buy in the store.
Are they common Parthenocarpicfigs?
A lot of them are, but you'd besurprised.
The commercial industry inCalifornia does use Smyrna figs
for production, but I've heardthat the Codota fig, I believe,
is the fig Newton fig.
That is a common fig and a lotof the ones like you go to
stores they will say like thevariety of fig it is and it's
generally a common fig, which isreally cool.
Caprified figs in Californiacan taste pretty incredible
though I'm not going to lie andthey get robust.

(56:14):
You know, this is another oneof those like California, like
ag things, where it's like, ofcourse, everything grows
perfectly in California.
Kind of unfair.

Speaker 1 (56:23):
Yeah, yeah, and so like, for most people, like,
where I am, like, those waspsdon't live here.
No, and so like, if you'regrowing a fig and you're eating
a fig off your plant, one, it'sgoing to be a common thing,
right, for the most part, right.
And two, like you know, you'renot going to eat a wasp because
those wasps are not here.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
They're not here.
They're actually brought overby Spanish missionaries when
they brought over figs toCalifornia, hence the Black
Mission.
Fig, yeah, and they weren'tsure why it worked at the time
they brought them over.
According to this one book thatI read I think it's just titled
Figs like a history of figs.
They will not be in your figs,guys, go ahead, enjoy them.

(57:02):
It's a seed crunch, it'sfantastic.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
Yeah, well, and I think even the caprified ones, I
think there's almost a bigger.
So when I talk to my studentsabout this, because we talk
about different types of fruits,we talk about, you know, how
some of them are formed and howsome of them, like a fig or a
strawberry or a few others, arelike these accessory fruits,
like they're extra floral partsthat we typically, you know,

(57:25):
theoretically eat.
You know theoretically eat, butlike everything has been
something else, and I think thatis such an interesting picture
when we look at a fig of becauseof the specific life cycle of
this insect, now, like you said,it's a really acute, really
narrow evolutionary relationship.
Yeah, like it's absorbed by theplant and yeah, it's.

(57:47):
You know, maybe for us it has aweird like feel in our brain,
but you know, pollination isthat way, life is that way.
It's complicated and everythingfeeds into something else and
like everything feeds intosomething else no, it's
philosophical and we figs.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
But it's metaphysical .
Here I think there's a huge bigpicture.
It's like I don't want to saysomebody who eats salads
regularly hasn't ingested somesmall piece of a creature by
accident, just never noticed,you know.
But or like we, just I thinkpeople get weirded out by the
fact they don't want to get ifthere were any sort of disease
risks or something like that.
I think maybe that ties to it.

(58:24):
But in reality, no, like nature, it's okay.
You can have dirt on yourcarrot, you can have a fig wasp
fly to a fig before it's ripe,it's okay and yeah.
But that's how I feel aboutthat.

Speaker 1 (58:36):
Yeah, no, I agree.
Oh, one thing here that'sreally interesting Talk about
the godfather fig, because thisis such a cool story.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
This is provenance in its best form.
We're one of the best right.
The ultimate best is someone'sfamily lineage.
Like I brought this from Israel, from my great-grandfather,
brought from Israel over here,and we had this tree.
I'm like that is such afantastic story it was worth
bringing all this way just tohave this, the Godfather fig.
This is also the beauty ofpropagations and selling

(59:04):
cuttings from mother trees andhaving genetically identical
branches that turn into the road.
And so the movie the Godfatherif you've ever watched it, there
is a scene where the originalGodfather himself is out in the
garden with his grandson andthis is where he has a heart
attack and passes away.

(59:24):
On that set there were two figtrees.
One was gifted to a guy thatworked on set, took it back to
his home on Long Island, had itthere forever.
His kids took over, realizedthe story.
A friend of the kids was likewell, tell me about this tree.
They said no, this was on theset of the Godfather.
He's like get out of town.
And you know, I'm in anItalian-American family.

(59:46):
Like having elements of thegodfather in life is very
symbolic in a lot of ways too.
But I found out.
I was like, of course I have tohave this fig cutting.
So he started propagating thefig cuttings and then it made
circulation and it's amazing.
So now I have one that is adirect branch from that tree on
set, and that is the beauty ofpropagation that is so cool.

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
What variety is it?
I don't even know.

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
Oh really, yeah, I don't even know if it's in the
Hardy Chicago family.
It might be its own thing.
And this is.
I have to say this because ifyou get a pollinated fig, the
caprified fig, the seeds areviable.
You are not going to getgenetically identical children.
You are going to get a grab bagof DNA and you don't know what

(01:00:32):
you're going to get.
There's a chance you will get asimilar one.
I talked to my buddy, anthony,the millennial gardener, and
he's gotten a lot of ones thatare very similar in lineage to
the parents.
But you can have a grab bag ofall kinds of figs and not to
mention, there are still budsports that can mutate on the
fig tree itself.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
Really interesting.
So as far as like, if peoplewant figs for their home, what
does that process look like?
How do people get them from you, because I know you ship and
you do all this kind of stuff Iship I.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
You know anyone who lives in Wilmington, north
Carolina area.
Reach out to me, phil, atphilsfigscom, and we can set up
an on-site appointment.
But I have figs for sale.
It's philsfigscom, you can gocheck it out.
I have long form YouTube contentwhere I just try to educate and
share my knowledge on how tocare for figs and find the figs
that grow best for every climateand all the different fig

(01:01:27):
flavors.
Mind you, some figs taste likeagave nectar and other ones
taste like raspberry jam andthey have different growing
patterns and things like that.
So, reaching out, it's kind ofunfair to say if I could have
one fig, what would I have?
I'm like, nope, toss thatquestion away.
You need three, you know, andpeople are fine with one.
But I think having lights anddarks is always nice and I have
a few varieties left.
Business has been going well andit's been really cool, because

(01:01:50):
my goal is not to sell fig trees, it's to help you grow a fig,
to experience what I experiencedthat first bite in Italy when I
had fresh figs, you know.
And so it's so cool to seepeople being like it's like in
cast.
I always say it's like inCastaway.
When he makes fire.
He's like I've made fire.
He's like I've had a fresh fighigher.
He's like I've had a fresh figand you're like I've had a fresh
fig.
You're like holy cow, I'm likeI know Right, and you're like I

(01:02:11):
get it.
I'm like thank you we get it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
That's really cool, that's really cool.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
So you have some left still, cause I know that's more
of a like you cut them whatearly winter and then, yeah, I
cut extra days to really kick itinto gear.
So it's healthy enough to ship,because I've encountered that
before where I've just shippedthem too soon and they're just
not happy enough and so I haveto hedge myself a little more.
But I do get a lot of requestsso I try to grant them and if
anything happens during shippingI try to either refund

(01:02:45):
immediately or try to resend outanother one, or both for that
matter.
But usually every spring I havea big spring sale and they're
usually in four by nine treepots or one gallon containers
and you can, I ship them viausps around the country and I'm
with my nursery license.
I can do it around the country.
Cool, continental us, sorry,sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:03:05):
Alaska and hawaii yeah I feel like figs in al
Alaska might be tough.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Yeah, you never.
If there's a will, there's away for sure.
Do a little greenhouse orsomething.
I used to live in Massachusetts.
He has them in a greenhouse allthe time.
He just leaves them in thegreenhouse.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
That's impressive actually Gotta be cold up there.
So you say you don't have afavorite fig, so I'll cross that
off my list of questions foryou.
I have a few.
Well, okay, so give us those.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
But then also, do you have a favorite fig recipe?
Oh my gosh, Outside of figs andcoffee, I love figs on pizza, I
think it is a great flavorprofile.
Figs cross the boundary betweensweet and savory.
They are the liaison piecethere, and when you cook figs
you caramelize them a lot.
They can really get that nicecaramelization If they're a

(01:03:57):
little underripe.
You can actually get that likeanimalization, a little bit like
the starches and the sugars.
This is why a lot ofstore-bought ones are cooked too
and you can eat them like candyor you can eat them with
balsamic and cheese and that'swhy they're just so versatile.
But you take a prosciutto figpizza and then get back to me
Maybe, sprinkle some fresh basilon top and you're good, I'm
going to have to make a pizzanow, because that sounds really

(01:04:20):
good.
And here's the thing People canslice them long ways, but you
slice them like pepperonis, likelittle sideways, like this
little discs.
They will cook beautifully foryou.
My brother has really gotteninto pizza making, so shout out
to Uni Pizza Ovens because heloves his when he's got it
dialed.
And fig pizza has been anawesome seasonal favorite.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
You know you were talking about using your
business as an excuse to buy agreenhouse.
This may be a good excuse forme to buy a pizza oven.
You're like honey.
We have this.

Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
We need a pizza oven to work through that like honey,
we have this, we need a pizzaoven and yeah, it makes total
sense to me well, man, I thishas been so fascinating.

Speaker 1 (01:04:58):
Like I said, I have about a million more questions
for you, so you're gonna have tocome back again oh, thanks so
much, man, so that I can botheryou more with all of my nerdy
questions.
So one thing I ask all of myguests you know every episode
I've done.
Ask all of my guests, you knowevery episode I've done a
hundred and whatever episodesand I've got some of the coolest
, like most interesting answersfor this.
But if you had a piece ofadvice, just something you'd
like to leave the listeners with, that could be about growing

(01:05:19):
figs, that could be just aboutlife in general, what would that
be?
What would you like people totake home with them?

Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
no-transcript personality type.
Now I am where I had a lot ofself doubt in my twenties and
trying to figure out life andnow that I'm in my later
thirties, like play the longgame and just keep going on
something that truly interestsyou and finding passions.
If you don't know, go out andstart trying stuff.

(01:06:08):
And one of the things isgardening.
For me that really took off andpropagating figs and the
meditation process of thatallows me to keep going.
But who I've met along the way?
And you realize that life isnot an end point at any given
place.
It's a fourth dimensional longjourney, reinforces just to get
started and I hope that makessense.

(01:06:29):
So just get out there and getstarted.

Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
Oh yeah, yes, Fantastic, that's great advice.
Well, phil, this has been somuch fun.
Where can people find you?
Where can we get your videosand everything else?

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
YouTube, it's Phil's Figs.
Facebook.
I need to post more, but Iusually put out my pictures and
communication there at Phil'sFigs.
And Instagram is my otherplatform I dedicate stuff to at
Phil's Figs and at philsfigscom,where I still have some fig
trees left.
So reach out, contact mepersonally.
I'm here to help you grow a figtree.

Speaker 1 (01:06:58):
Very cool, Phil.
This has been so much fun.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
So much fun, do it again.

Speaker 1 (01:07:01):
We will chat soon on the garden party, I'm sure.
But man, just an inspiration.
I've learned a lot.
Just wonderful to talk to you.

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):
You're the best to talk to man.
It's fun hanging out.

Speaker 1 (01:07:12):
I hope, whatever it is that you're passionate about,
you are passionate about itenough to just start, to just
give it a try and just to followPhil's sage advice.
Thanks so much, phil, for beingon the show and for all your
cool geology and coastal ecologyand fig facts.
I learned a lot and I can'twait to talk to you again on

(01:07:33):
Planthropology.
Thanks to you so much forlistening.
You know I do this for you andyou know that I love you.
Planthropology is edited,hosted, produced all the things
by yours truly, vikram Baliga.
Our opening and closing musicis by the award-winning composer
, nick Scout, and the mid-rollmusic is by my buddy, rui, and I
hope you'll go find and enjoyhis really cool lo-fi dad jazz.

(01:07:57):
Thanks for listening, thanksfor being a part of it.
Keep being kind to one another.
If you have not to date beenkind to one another, it's
probably a really, really,really really good time to start
.
Be kind, be good, be safe, andI will talk to you next time.

(01:08:22):
Thank you.