Celeste is just so reliable, every year it comes through even when everything else is struggling. Nice to hear Chicago Hardy keeps up, I keep recommending it to people in colder spots.
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Very interesting that your Campaniere rivals Smith. Had never seen it reviewed that highly. I’ve tried and failed to grow out cuttings a couple years, decided C was not in the cards for me and now have too many figs as it is.
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Yeah, I was surprised by this review. I think Smith is far superior.
im sure some of these excretions are sap but some seems to be sugars. are they natural and from swelling so far or bugs?
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My Campaniere was planted in the ground. My smith trees are in 10 gallon fabric containers. The downside to Smith to me is that it doesn’t lignify fully for me in Zone 7B when the cold temps start hitting. I haven’t even attempted (nor will I) plant it in the ground. The Campaniere tree right now in August just has a little bit of green growth at the top of the branches. Everything else is lignified already. So not only is the flavor very intense & concentrated (probably due to the fig being much smaller) but it seems like this variety will handle cold winters exceptionally well.
Just out of curiosity I checked youtube just now to see if other people like Campaniere too. Here’s Ross (FigBoss) tasting Campaniere. He has grown hundreds of Fig trees. He says in this review it’s the best fig he has had all year (in that particular growing season)
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the ones on the top right are definately latex. and the bottom ones look like sugar! yeah its normal and yeah its from bugs taking a little bite, i find it pretty harmless though. the sugar will come out of the eye if anywhere if its just from swelling.
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You’re right- I had forgotten Ross’ rave review, the main reason I tried to root it, sorry.
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lol you should check whether Ross ever got Smith to fruit. He stopped talking to me a few years ago. He had insisted on minimal pruning and close spacing, which resulted in self-shaded trees. With inadequate penetration of sunlight, he got no fruit. He challenged a bunch of growers on the Ourfigs forum to show him Smith trees with figs. Six of us did so, and he noticed the common theme — pruning to create an open center.
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Yeah, Ross has doing good work on putting a lot of information out there, but I’m not convinced all that information is good. Or necessarily applicable to people in other climates or with different growing practices. Overall, it’s good he’s been so active, but I would never use him, or most anyone, as a single source of information.
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he has recently been posting about supposedly being able to tell if a fig is smyrna or common by looking at it cut in half. no basis for it, and didnt respond to my good faith questiosn with pictures of my common figs cut open that supposedly look smyrna. I dont know what hes talking about.
Hes got good tasting reviews but he often seems confident on information that has what seems like no basis besides that he thought it sounded right.
Anyway my smith has a few figs. ones actually ripening now, hopefully will be eating it tomorrow. Black zadar and jh adriatic are also ripening now. A lot of my other figs are only 1 year old so their ripening time has a bit of a delay (in my experience at least)
I keep my figs quite close but i am pruning them in a sort of stadium seating arrangement lol
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His setup is very unique (trying to grow as many trees as he does in a small area). I don’t follow his method on summer pruning. I just grow my figs as single leader trees with an open center. I prune my trees in winter to keep the main scaffold branches intact to have fruiting wood grow off of it next season. Simple.
Here’s a video of ross cutting open his Smith figs many years ago. They look solid. That’s what mine look like when I eat them ripe.
He’s a gold mine of info. There isn’t a person alive today sharing as much information on fig varieties in video format as much as him.
I wish there was someone like him doing videos on Persimmon varieties. Ockoo Farm’s youtube channel is the best we have with Persimmons. He has shared good info for sure on Persimmons. But there isn’t many different opinions on them.
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yeah his strength is 100% the detailed reviews he has on fig varieties and I think hes an excellent source for what figs look like in his climate (which is similar to mine and therefore very useful, though of only medium use if youre in a totally different one)
Be the change you wish to see in the world with persimmons haha
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Campanière is the top fig on my wishlist for that reason, and that it ripens extremely quickly, compared to others, once the figs have sized up? How fast does it seem to ripen for you after you get a fig that is the size of the end of your thumb?
It does ripen very quickly. When it begins to swell it seems to take just days for it to ripen. There was a Campaniere fig yesterday that didn’t seem fully ripe. It didn’t feel soft enough to me. Then today I checked it out and there was honey dripping out the bottom of the eye and the fig was lightly cracking (it just rained yesterday). Luckily I had an organza bag over it or there would have been ants/bugs eating away at it.
That Campaniere fig today was not as good as the one the other day. The rain must have diluted it a bit. It wasn’t as intense. But I was trying to figure out what Campaniere was reminding me of. There’s this flavor in it that I’ll have to double check the more I eat them but it comes off exotic/tropical. It reminded me of Papaya. The Papaya’s I’ve eaten at the grocery store have this distinct “Papaya” flavor but they are often very low in sugar. It’s such a bland fruit to me. Campaniere tastes like if a store bought Papaya was actually specatular. 
It tasted like Papaya dripping with high grade honey. Or in essence a Papaya with high brix.
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I must say he has given very bad advice about how to grow raspberries. He doesn’t seem to do his homework. Check what’s going on out there.
I like looking at what the breeders are doing. They helped me a lot not only on growing raspberries but how to breed , grow from seed etc. Awesome people who will talk with you. Ross grew them for one year and declared himself an expert . Kinda admits it in his videos. I have heard some find his videos useful. I did not. There are some really well informed fig growers. I tend to listen to the guys who have introduced figs themselves such as Bass, one of many very experienced growers.
One thing I learned it’s possible to get a bad plant. Sometimes plants have problems although appear normal. I have had two rooted cuttings from the same tree. I did the cutting. One grew like crazy the other did not. You really need to try about three plants before you comment on production. At least grown a cultivar five years.
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It’s good to hear such positive things about it. I am somewhat thinking of doing some fig breeding with it, Chicago hardy, florea, Longue d’Août, and several others more, basically just a couple generations of mass (100-400) plantings mixing traits from those varieties with primarily selecting for highest production possible for in ground unprotected trees, with a sub goal of breeding greater cold-hardiness. Already have a edible persistent caprifig that seems to definitely lignify a lot more rapidly than Chicago hardy.
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I picked it, probably could have ripened some more, but it tasted very sweet and good. Had a strong watermelon flavor.
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Definitely underripe. Another 2-3 days, I’d guesstimate.
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