Figs, figs, everywhere!

RdB has been disappointing to me in that it splits very badly in the rain,
while the others don’t.

Yeah I’m not seeing that. It rained all day today and it has ripe figs on it. The worst for me is Florea which splits when it gets cloudy out! Well no, it is the only plant that had rotten figs.
MBVS had the tightest eye so far.
I’m going to go look at the figs now, dark out so will look with a flash light.
They look fine and eye is closed tight. I’m thinking it may not be an RdB? Mine or yours although my fruit sure looks like RdB. I will watch it all the same. Rain is done here now for a few days at least.
It rained a lot too! Nice and cool, feels great. The heat wave broke at last! I’m so ready for fall!
Just for the record my RdB has FMV, I thought about trying to find a clean one, and decided not to, the plant seems not to care. It’s a first leaf, and it has figs, it’s not broke, I’m not fixing it.

My original RdB mother has FMV too Drew, the one I showed a picture of earlier in the season, it is a beast. It still makes sick growths and I prune them in the spring but it is so vigorous the healthy ones would just smother them anyway. If a cutting from it with heavy symptoms struggles for some reason or another it will be stunted and possibly die from the virus accumulation in the small plant, fewer cell divisions mean more virus particles per cell, the division/replication rates are not depenent on each other.

It seems to split a lot also, I actually like Florea more most of the time. RdB has a bit of vegetal taste, sort of like a green pepper someone just suggested to me, that I don’t really find appealing. Everyone else seems to like it though, and they can be very attractive. Needs to have a good bit of structure in the spring if planted in ground and vigorous or it tends to send out a branch at almost every node and very few figs.

Yes, I don’t have enough experience to say much at this point. I like green peppers, so there you go! :yum:

Somehow it seems that RdB has become the gold standard of figs that
everyone raves about. I have other figs that taste much better. Although my
tree is fairly young and in a pot, and has no FMV, if it doesn’t improve after
I plant it, it’s gone.

I have to make drastic cuts at some point, I do though want to give them a few years before I decide.
Taste is one factor productivity, ease of care, how pest resistant. Like I have one tomato plant that has a bad white fly infestation, and none of the others do, of course this fly magnet produces wonderful tomatoes, is productive. A dwarf tomato, it’s a keeper.
Anyways thanks for your thoughts on RdB, it helps make a decision. Although all gardening is local Which is Farmer Fred’s number one rule!

We had 1.2 inches of rain yesterday. I picked three figs off of RdB

The one on the far right is so ripe, it has mold on it. I see a slightly open eye, but no splitting.

Which one is the moldy one?


Taste is like I have said before. I don’t have much of a palate when it comes to figs, they all seem pretty good, different. Sweet, a little dull compared to some fruits I eat. I have to eat more to appreciate them.
The one in the middle is the least ripe, and would split badly, if left to ripen to almost black. It has premature cracking. Somehow the other two came out fine? The unripe one has a melon taste. I associate that with unripe fruit. I have tasted that melon taste in others not ripe. I know some describe taste as melon, I mean unripe melon.
The black fig not cracked, and not moldy is how you want these. And no! I didn’t taste the moldy one!

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I’m always stunned by the massive effect growing conditions have on fig quality. RdB and St Rita are two examples for me this yr. Too much water and humidity and they are big, watery, and nearly tasteless. If grown such that they shrivel up on the bush they are superb. Not just sweet but richly flavored.

So don’t always blame the variety, blame the growing conditions.

Our weather switched about 5 wks ago from 90s, sunny, and 50s dew points to 80s, clouds, and 60s dew points. Even in my greenhouse with no rain on the plants that change caused fig quality to fall off a cliff.

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Yes, some very good points! I picked a bunch before the rain, but some were caught at the right time to split early. Only two were no good. I dry the others for use in cooking. Figs are ripening daily for me. Tried my first Chicago Hardy, Sal Gene is almost ripe, etc. Fun!!

I was thinking about that point, Fruitnut.

My CH were the size of a thumb before the rain. After about 4 out of 7 days of rain, they have ballooned to a big toe size ( sorry for the comparison). They are watery, soggy and bland, indeed.

Yes, off to the drying machine with you! I’ll eventually get it down. i also hope to have some large trees in posts that will suck water like an elephant, so figs will be better for sure with bigger plants. Mine are babies. I’m not expecting much, and I got a little more than expected. Now to try to eliminate some! I’m having a hard time!

The one on the left, it fooled me, and is why I reversed the figs, I almost ate that moldy one!
The good dark one was darker inside, not watery either. It was ripe beyond it’s ability to take on water, that is why it didn’t split. It was perfect as it gets. I did not detect anything that tastes like peppers. My VdB’s split worse than the RdB’s. I had to throw one out it split wide open and was full of ants.

I understand exactly what you’re saying and I know once it goes in the ground
and has time to become an “adult” it should get better. But I have RdB and
Battaglia Green (Thanks) both growing in pots, side by side, getting the same feeding and care, and BG is producing great tasting figs, while RdB is mediocre at best. That’s what’s disappointing!! And RdB splits, while BG doesn’t.

Funny, it’s the opposite for me. My VdB never split, while RdB does.

So I have not read about this technique for getting figs to ripen sooner here on this forum but apparently some have had good results. Anyone tried this?
The last half of the video is an ad but the comments are more informative.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G48ikXgS6gQ

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Anne,
Last year someone here mentioned about using olive oil to help figs ripen. I thought it was done after figs were harvested. That was i did. Not surprisingly, it did not work for me :blush:

This video tells you exactly how it is done. It is getting cooler now. I think some of my figs will not ripen in time. I will try this guy’s method. Working or not, It won’t hurt.

Thanks for posting.

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This method was indeed mentioned on the forum and, moreover, in this very thread: Figs, figs, everywhere! - #124 by matrix

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Stan,
Thank you. Now that I read it carefully, Matrix did imply that it’d be done while figs are on the trees.

Will try this method this evening.

The first fruits on my largest fig never seemed to ripen that I noticed, before discovering ants apparently eating them. I pinched the tips a month or so ago because I wanted to thicken up the trunk before heading into its first winter here. There’s several figs in the neighborhood, so I’m very optimistic about its chances. I noticed this morning what appear to be figlets starting to form. If we have a warm fall, do y’all think I might get to taste a fig by thanksgiving that’s starting today?

Improved Celeste is my first maincrop fig from inground plants. A winner variety for hardiness and early ripening, tasty too. This one will hang for another couple days…

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So here are a few RdBs from a couple days ago. You can probably tell which are from container plants and which is from a grounded beast of a fig tree. I taste “it”, the vegetal taste which I can’t really describe all that well, in the “tree ripe” stage figs (pale and top) and just a little in the one the wasps started on. Most of my experience with RdB is with my grounded tree, 2nd year with container plants and they did split last year as first year/vigorous plants, not much growth this year so the figs are much better.

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