Cold hardy figs

Season length would affect the decision. Outside of the real long season areas taking out the smallest and not allowing others to develop would be a good plan. Even in my greenhouse now is about the cutoff date. Anything smaller than pea size probably won’t make it.

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Thanks a lot, Steven.

Dax

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My first Marseilles Black VS of the year. They were good. I’ve had better from this containerized specimen.

Dax

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Black Bethlehem. This fig ripened for me today (August 13, 2017).

I cheated; @zendog gifted me this plant.

This cultivar was discovered by @Bass growing in-ground with almost no protection in a Greek neighborhood in Bethlehem, PA.

This one had a sweet melon/berry flavor with some modest seed crunch. It left a nice honey sweetness on my palate. I split it into pieces. My wife and kid liked it too. They said it was “quite delicious.”

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looks really good. perfectly ripened, Matt.

Dax

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Nice job Matt. That one looks delicious. Any hope for figs on the others I gave you? My Celeste had been very productive as well this year and didn’t drop most of the figs like it has in other years.

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Steve’s Brown Turkey has a biggun. I expect that one will ripen. Possibly some others…

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Our Desert King Fig in Seattle areas ready for harvesting.

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SBT getting really fat now. It enjoyed this week’s rain. Still waiting for the color to change…

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Looking good Matt. I had my first SBT this morning and can see a couple more getting chubby.

The rain is nice since I haven’t had to water, but actually the SBT I had this morning was split and all of my Briguglios that have ripened have split as well. The splitting has never been this bad before, so I’d be very happy if it would stop raining! Black Bethlehem and Celeste aren’t splitting and have always kept a tight eye, but they aren’t as sweet as I remember, probably due to the rain as well.

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More figs all the time! This year has been kind to me!

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Been having some rain here, first RdB is about 2x the size of what I’m used to… split and watery but still OK.
Only one growth is ripening anything so far- the one that survived winter intact. Interested to see how the other growths size up.

LSU Tiger (Easton Purple) has started, as well as one or 2 Etna types, lots of rotting and dropping with my container trees from being submerged in muddy flood waters though, half or more on some trees are no good. I knew it was coming but that don’t make it any easier :neutral_face:

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Color change just began. What do these things look like when they are at their best? Fully brown I assume? Do they droop? Do they exhibit subtle cracking?

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It will droop and may get a few cracks when fully ripe. It will definitely get darker, but not as dark as the Black Bethlehem and may still have some green toward the stem or in lighter stripes along the fig. I mostly go by giving them a light squeeze once they’ve started to turn color and drooped. If you wait a day past when it first droops, I’m sure it will be great, but I regularly pick them as soon as they soften since I haven’t completed my netting enough to take out the birds.

I’m actually trying a new test of using some organza bags I have for stone fruit and just putting them on when a fig starts to color. That may keep the birds off for a day or so to allow me to get more of my ripe figs. I can just give them a squeeze while they’re in the bag. I put the first ones on yesterday, so I’ll check later today and tomorrow to see if it is actually confounding the birds.

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Didn’t take long for my season to kick off. Most are from a 7 YO container Etna type, no pruning ever so the crop is condensed. Also Florea and Easton Purple.

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Steve’s Brown Turkey.
Aug.19, 2017.
Sweet honey/watermelon-like flavor. A little dilluted from yesterday’s rain. Modest seed crunch. Fairly good size fig. This is a strain of Brown Turkey belonging to @zendog’s neighbor, “Steve,” in Arlington, VA. Zendog gifted me a clone (thanks!).

My wife liked it too. She said, “Hmm… I think I like figs now.”



… and a photo of yesterday’s double-rainbow:

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Looks like a Sicilian Red to me, sounds just like one too.

They are really coming on strong! The next flush of figs is nearly ready!

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Clark,

Did you pinched their tips this year?

Tony

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Most of my in-ground figs don’t have any fruit set this year. I’ll try pinching next year. The Gris de St Jean (featured in another thread where I described the two figs that I ripened in a 1 gal pot in a window in Jan), is now planted, but decided to set quite a few. Regrettably, it just formed them in the last few weeks, so not much chance they can ripen outside.

I decided to see if I could air-layer it with a decent sized bottle. Then, by the time it starts to get cold, maybe it will have enough roots that I can snip it off and move it into a pot to ripen a few more.

Has anyone here had success with something like this? I think I remember @Drew51 doing something like this, but I don’t remember if he got the figs to ripen.

I cut off a couple figs and leaves to make room for the bottle. I also cut a bit of skin off (maybe 1.5" x 0.3") and put a bit of rooting hormone on it and the cut leave/fig stem.

I don’t think you can really see it in the pic, but there is a cloths pin under the bottle holding it up.

After this pic, I added a bamboo support post, just so the dirt filled bottle doesn’t get too heavy for the plant.

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