How to tell when figs are ripe: as soon as the birds eat all of them, they’re ripe.
My grandpa used to hang aluminum pie tins from his fig tree to keep the birds away. It sure helped!
That’s how you tell with peaches, but it’s when the squirrels start eating them.
At least the peaches will ripen in the house. Not so with blueberries and raspberries. A green blueberry is not half bad but I wouldn’t eat a bowlful.
A couple years the nesting Coopers hawks solved the berry and bird problem. So would my cats if I let them out.
I do plant for hummingbirds. Right now the native honeysuckle is blankets of bloom.
Here we can tell if the figs are ripe when they all drop to the ground at once, making a huge sticky mess - and are immediately descended on by bees and other insects.
Got some new recipes for this year so hope to get ‘em before the birds, insects and inevitable slop to the ground.