Yes it is, have no need to expand my fig collection. After all the bull… has cleared i am going to be happy with just one, yep one premium only, and the winner is Smith. Have 6 full grown Smith tree’s and they are my go to ones. I 'm not in the fig race. Out of a hundred fig varieties available, 95 taste close to the same. I got the best varieties in citrus, got to weed them out also. Got doubles and triples etc.
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Variety is the spice of life…!! Varieties are the spice of life…!! Take your pick…!!
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Whatever works for you. Smith is a good one. I like about ten a lot and feel they differ enough to keep each one. Some taste nothing alike. I’m still testing many. I do the same thing with all fruits. I grow many others. Starting to get a handle on what’s working for me. Lot’s of fun doing it too! I have a few ripe figs right now, think I’ll inspect the plants and snack on them.
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There are over 1,000 varieties of figs, how different they taste not only depends on what you choose to grow, also depends on climate, personal taste weighs in too, a lot of people will argue if the same fig cut in half is good or not, or even what the same fig cut in half tastes like. Some people say that most fig varieties taste alike were as others will see a difference in each variety ranging from tiny to huge. Even from the same exact trees, one of each variety.
What’s best for you is what’s best for you. I am not in any fig race myself. I have seven fig trees in ground (all different varieties, all taste different enough to me), I will add one more. I will most likely keep one in a pot too. If I ever got more land I’d get more, yet I am not rushing like a race. Also no one variety is good in every climate so some experimenting needs to be done. Smith does not produce well in every climate, luckily it does for you. It would not do so well for us, yet we have GM-142 which it’s fruit is supposed to be a lot like Smith, it does great here and it appears to be a high producer. If people did not grow Smith and GM-142 side by side it would be much harder to know what to grow in place of Smith. So it’s not really all bull.
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Drew, I am like you. When you grow a lot of different varieties of fruit tree’s you have to balance all options.
What I dislike about figs, the premium kinds are so expensive to buy. I can buy any citrus tree or mango or whatever tree for about $ 35.00,not so with figs, unless you have a good friend.
The prices wind up being so expensive because someone somewhere spends tons of money originally getting what ever variety, spends money on dirt, on pots, and they want to make the 100s of dollars back, then sadly people want whatever so bad that they are willing to pay a lot of money for it to have it right away, which makes it sell for even more, the demand and people’s willingness to pay so much for it makes even auctions set low go for hundreds of dollars in very little time. Many people don’t have the patience to wait.
The prices are crazy. I managed not to pay too much for any of mine. One guy who is now a well known seller, just started and i was able to obtain some rare figs from him for cheap as nobody bid. Like 8 bucks for Galicia Negra. Which i have traded twice for others, now have all I need or want except for a few. Also I agree in the sense no fig is really as good as the best pluots I have had, or even pineberry strawberries. Red fleshed nectarines. Not only good fresh, they make a killer smoothie or a baked crisp with French vanilla ice cream. My black currant syrup is to die for. I like it for ice cream, cordials, and I made a drink with one shot syrup, one of Tito’s vodka, and 2 shots of lemonade or even tonic make a fantastic drink. Black currant margarita or martini would be awesome too. Honeyberries are looking promising for a syrup, and now some sweeter ones for fresh eating are being developed. These have a very nice flavor, like blueberry meets raspberry. Both of which I grow too. Although figs have a place. I love drying them, not super dry,. Half dry and freeze. I snack on them all winter. My dehydrator broke, I’m getting a new one for Christmas, so I have been giving a lot away this year. I need that dehydrator! I have been sun drying herbs this year. I noticed they become a lot darker with sun drying. i should try it with figs sometime.
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I definitely enjoy a good fig and cannot really say that any cravings are over. The season in which you can get fresh figs is rather short and dried figs do not really do a lot for me. I supplement the figs I get from my trees through buying fresh figs at a local farmer’s market and when I can find them at the nicer markets (and even CostCo last year!)
I have 3 fig trees in the ground, and not much room for more as I do like a variety of fruit, so the figs have to share space with the apples, plum, nectarine, citrus, some veggies, etc. A few more very young fig trees in pots.
I agree with you both, as much as I enjoy a good fig, I do not want to spend an exorbitant amount on a ‘rare’ fig. But to answer the title of your post, my fig cravings are not over, just slightly sated now, but I know it will be back when the season is over!
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I liked figs just like the rest of my fruits. But I sometimes wonder is it worth it to spend a half an hour watering the pots on the daily basis. I admitted that when I first tasted any fruits for the first time that they are so good but now with the abundance of them in production and all the the WOW is not the same anymore.
Tony
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When you grow a big variety of fruits where do figs come in, is it come in 5th or higher. In my growing experience the number is 7 or 8.
Some of my other tree’s are rated better than figs
How about Warren pears, citrus, for a guy that lives in Arkansas grows about 24 citrus tree’s, all different kinds.
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I agree. Figs are great and all and after 100 or so varieties I still think a good peach or pear or even blackberries or mayhaw jelly are just the tops in my book. I’d be curious to know what citrus trees you are growing and which ones you like the most?
Ortego, Page, Xie-Shan, Valentene, Santa Teresa, Thong Dee, Dream Navel, Cara-Cara Navel, all 4 Gold Series.
Have you ever seen a Cara-Cara navel this big? Bigger than a grapefruit.
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Wow! Cool fruit!! I have 3 citrus trees from seed. I have to bring them in in the winter. Just for fun, from seed. I went to Sarasota Florida for a race, and I went to an Amish Market. Their is a large Amish Community there. Probably the most liberal! Many Amish were at the beach. I’m used to the MI and OH Amish people. Anyway I bought an Amish heirloom orange and it was the sweetest orange I ever ate, very low acid. It had 2 seeds, one germinated. My other two trees are tangerines from the store. I know a few citrus work well indoors, but I don’t want them bad enough to pay for them. All are still too small to fruit.
I just picked a Salem Dark Fig. A Mt Etna type. It was so ripe I had to make sure it was not sour. It was not, and man it was wonderful. I like many other fruit better, but a good fig like this cannot be bought. You have to grow it.
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As far as plants that do not need to be replanted often. We have tried growing figs, peaches, plums, pomegranates, hazelnuts, almonds, pears, lingonberries, blueberries. The figs are the only thing that have a good reliable crop so far, they are our number 1.
I guess trying to grow Lingonberries in this area was a huge mistake, I got a lot of plants of them and they all just died.
This year is the first year that our peach tree has produced (one out of 2 trees) and so I have no idea if they produce reliably yet. They are both seedlings, the one that has produced so far has great tasting fruit and they are freestone golden peaches, I am not sure if it’s the lack of sun much of the day from the very tall and huge trees in our neighbors yard growing like weeds each year shading the area more and more each year, yet they are low in sugar, that’s why we are baking with them. The small size of the fruit is because we don’t thin the fruit. The problem we are having is that the squirrels thin them down for us. If we thin them down well ourselves then the squirrels do the same I am afraid that we might not have much left. Also there are worms in the peaches and we have to cut them up before eating them. One thing about the figs that I love is that we don’t have to spray them, and they are lower maintenance.
Plums have not been a reliable crop every year, I think we need later flowering varieties, in the past we had a plum trees die of black knot so we are limited to the higher disease resistant varieties . Our plums have worms in them as well. Plums used to be better when the trees were not getting shaded by the trees in the neighbor’s yard.
Our pomegranate plants have not produced yet, although they should be in our top 3 eventually. Hazelnuts have not produced yet, next year should be the first year for those.
Almond tree has not produced reliably and there is that pest that is destroying a high percentage of the almond crops in California in our area, the one year that it looked like we were going to have a crop they destroyed the entire crop. I do not have my hopes up about almonds.
Pears have not produced yet, yet that should be in our top 3 eventually. Most of our bluberries have not produced any yet and something is taking most of the fruit raw, I don’t have much hope for them.
Alan,
You need to grow some more low maintenance trees like Honey Jar jujubes, the Peterson’s pawpaw collections, and Asian & American persimmons. They are very reliable once they are in a full production mode.
Tony
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Bob,
The figs sure grow well in your mild climate. Nice open landscape you got there.
Tony
It is funny you say “95 taste close to the same”, I can hardly find two fruits tasting the same. Even water, I can easily detect the taste differences between water from different sources… It’s a blessing and a curse at the same time, a blessing because I can enjoy the richness of taste of different foods , but a curse because I become very picky; imagine for example going on a one-week vacation and you can’t find a water source or a bottled-water brand that you like…
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I hope you just didn’t jinx yourself! No SWD? I have them here, but they tend to leave the figs alone if I have other berries growing. Right now they are going after my cherry tomatoes, and raspberries.
And your growing peaches? You know if the peach pollinates your almond tree you will get bitter cyanide laden almonds. If bitter discard them. Unlike fruit flesh, seed carries genes of both parents.
Ahmad, yes you got a problem, sure there are always differences, but for me it does not make a problem that makes me buy and grow another tree that is similar in taste.
Forums for me means that sooner or later through learning the best varieties available to grow your self either through buying or exchanges.
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