Loquats

There’s a tree in our backyard that’s overburdened with bunches of fig-shaped orange fruit. We hadn’t paid much attention to the tree until earlier this week, when we arrived home and spotted some people in our backyard, harvesting some of the fruit. They scampered off when they saw us. Curious, we brought a piece of the fruit inside and cut it open, revealing a dark central pit.

I Googled “California stone fruits” and eventually found an image of a loquat, which seemed to match the fruit. I called our landlord today, and he confirmed it (he also said he hoped we wouldn’t mind that he’d invited a neighbor to sample some of the fruit—those must have been the interlopers).

Faced now with a tree full of loquats—many of which are already shriveled—I’m looking forward to making…chutney. It seems there’s not much to do with loquats except make chutney or jam, so that’s what I’m going to do.

Any edible backyard fruit is exciting to me, but I’m most excited about the harvest of figs we’ll have in the next few weeks. They’re still unripe right now, but they’re coming along: