FIG TREES, THE E.48TH STREET MARKET AND THE USO!
Or one little twig and how it grew!
The story of a hobby about propagating Fig trees resulted in raising funds to assist our military personnel through the services of USO (United Service Organization) at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport.
Back in the 40’s my father-in-law, Salvatore Augello, planted a cutting from a Turkish Brown fig tree that originated from his hometown of Castrofillipo, Sicily. He planted it in the small back yard of my husband’s Uncle Joe’s apartment house on E. 48th Street in Manhattan, which is also were my husband, Charlie, grew up.
In the late 50’s my father -in-law took a cutting from that fig tree and planted it in the back yard garden of my sister and brother-in-law’s home (May & husband Tony Tortorici) on Long Island. In the late 70’s Tony gave Charlie and me a few cuttings from his fig tree to plant at our home in Massachusetts. A couple of cuttings survived, and we brought them with us when we moved to Georgia as the weather should be very compatible for fig trees.
As the Turkish fig tree blossomed Charlie’s interest in expanding the varietals also expanded resulting in 7 fig trees, the original one, now in the ground, and the others growing in large black plastic buckets. The trees loved their new home and care. To control the growth of each of the trees and making harvesting manageable, he started pruning each tree every year and propagating the cuttings to pass along to our children and grandchildren and to sell at the Market to raise money for the USO with the help of Rotary club of Dunwoody. The USO is a wide-spread organization that helps military and military families in a large number of ways. Proud and happy to say that this effort has been successful for a few years now !
This year we have two varietals Turkish Brown and Black fig.
NOW FOR SALE
In the continued effort of raising money for USO, we now have for sale Turkish Brown and Black Fig for SALE at the E. 48th Street Market in Dunwoody.
FIRST COME FIRST SERVE
Your choice $25 each – all funds donated to the USO!
BUON MANGIATA!
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