My parents used to have fig trees in their backyard. Though my dad currently designs software and my mom is a registered nurse, their backgrounds were originally in agricultural science. They have an enviable garden which grows everything from peppers to eggplants to squash to amaranth. Unfortunately the said fig trees were not as successful as some of the other plants. They were actually more like saplings which my dad was trying to grow into full-fledge trees; they didn't make it through the hot Texas summers and frequent droughts. Even in the few seasons they did produce fruit, my parents rarely got the opportunity to eat the figs they had worked so hard for as the birds would inevitably get to them first.