any of you southern folk or others have a sho nuff jam up fig preserve recipe?? pardon the play on words.

This is the way I learned it from granny.

Wash your figs, pinch off any stems. You can split them if you want but granny didn't.

In a large pot or basin layer figs sugar figs and top with thinnly sliced lemons to cover. About a 1:1 on sugar to figs but you can cut the sugar back by half but no more than that

Cover and let sit overnight. The sugar will draw out the juices and melt making it's own syrup.

Pack figs and syrup tightly into hot sterilized jars topping with lemon slices. Water bath the jars. If you want you can heat the figs to almost a boil before packing.

You can do pears the same way.

Interesting recipe warrior. Thanks! I won't have enough figs to can this year but should have some pears later this summer. Gonna give it a try. Do you use the lemons with the pears as well?

Yes

You want a hard cooking pear. Keiffer being the best but orient is good as well. A softer eating pear will cook down to mush. Pineapple pear will as well. Those we made pear honey, basically a sweetened pear sauce like apple sauce, or pear relish, a peppered and spiced sauce.

Almost forgot, in the jars, you probably won't use all the lemon, just a layer on top. You’ll probably have extra left over. We would eat those as kids skin and all.

Pear honey was really good on pancakes. Pear relish went well with vegetables.

You now anything about raising them properly? Warrior
I have 10 trees and the internet suck on pruning and care

Figs or pears?

Figs are pretty much care free here. Just got to watch out for them when young due to cold. We let them grow out to multistemmed large bushes so if you lose a branch or two to a hard freeze you don't lose them all. They readily grow back from the roots. Young ones you can pile up pine straw or hay on them in the winter and rake it out come spring. Prune out any cold damage immediately as ambrosia beetles are murder on them and dead wood is how they get started.

Pears need good early training and pruning. Prune to a good central leader and a few well spaced scaffolds. Pears are very prone to narrow upright crotch angles that are weak are prone to breakage under heavy fruit loads so select scaffolds that are closer to 90° and or weigh down or brace those scaffolds to get them there. Watch for leggy upright new growth and head those back as they get tall and bend over badly when loaded. If grafted watch for suckers and cull those. The big problem down here is fireblight. It'll kill anything that isn’t resistant and most everything that is eventually if you don't stay on top of it. Prune out any fireblight immediately and cut well below any infected wood being sure to disinfect the cutter between cuts. Fireblight enters through blooms and open wounds and humidity makes it worse. Our wet humid springs are blight central. Sprays with streptomycin during bloom and after damaging storms really help.

Most all of our southern pears are going to be some sort of cross onto the chinese sand pear which is resistant. Straight european pear has no resistance and won't survive down here. So no comice, anjou or barlett will survive longterm. Kieffer a bartlett×sand cross is the classic southern pear. Large, hard, gritty and semi-sweet you either love it or hate it but it's a great canning pear. I love it.

My main pear tree is a sand pear. I do have a young pineapple pear, but it only has 4 pears on it, lol.

I had a brown turkey fig that was doing great... about 3 years old... dozens of figs.... then came 0 degree temps one year, about 3 years ago, and this is the first year it's produced since... think there's 2 figs on it lol.

Another thing on pears is getting them pollinated. Many are self infertile and you need another different pear to get it done and they have to bloom at the same time. That and they are poor nectar producers and bees would rather work stuff with better nectar like apples. Planting them close by each other with apples in the mix is the way I was taught.

Interesting. Here.... our pears are the first to bloom, with apples blooming a month or more later. Our pear's blossoms usually have baby pears on them, before the first apple blooms.

Is there a certain apple that blooms that much earlier???

thanks for the help, it is greatly appreciated.

I do everything as “granny “ does,except for adding the lemons.then, instead of putting them in jars, i put them in a large pot and put them on the stove and slowly cook them until they get to the consistency that I like, which is a very thick syrup. Then I pour them into sterilized hot pint jars, slap a lid on it and make sure they seal well.not only are they good eating, but they make the best coon bait for dog proof traps that you can get.

There were a few food items that I didn't like as a kid; mangos, broccoli, etc., but I love tgem now. I don't think that this is uncommon.
However, two things that I liked as a kid, I don't like now; figs and beets.