RdB has flexible wood, so what you can do is pin one and/or 2 year old trunks to the ground and cover them along with the crown. It doesn’t take long, but sometimes the damage can happen during the first frost of the fall so having a temporary cover really helps too. RdB also likes to send out many suckers and branches so it does need a lot of pruning/thinning during the growing season to keep it from getting weedy.
This is a one year old trunk I covered, you can see only the tip died back and it set fruit well.
You do much better with getting figs on your RdB than I do! Mine is in a 15 gallon container and is very stingy with the figs. I was considering replacing it with a VdB I have in a smaller container and was looking to move up.
Thanks Californicus. I may be wrong. I heard from @fruitgrower before that the wasp makes it much better, but that may apply to many varieties. Of course this does not mean it will not produce without the wasp.
I get it. CA is a bit of a different deal. Just thought I’d weigh in about relative ripening time of the green, berry flavored Adriatic type figs since you were getting some recommendations of that sort and many Adriatics are late ripeners. Of the Adriatics, so far, I am only eating Grosse Monstreuse this season.
This is the first year my " Parking Lot Fig" has produced fruit. I found the 12" sapling growing in a gravel median in the local Target parking lot (hence, the name). So I took my trusty mini-shovel out of the trunk (good for stations like this, and in case I need to bury a body), dug it up and planted it in my back yard
As far as I can tell from my research, it has fruit and leaf qualities of RdB and VdB.
I’ve never been very fond of figs, even those I tried at the farmers markets here in Southern CA, but that was before I tried a homegrown fig! Man oh man–is it delicious! The jammy love child of raspberry, honey apple and red wine. I’m in LOVE!
Thats good looking figs. I suggest you should dehydrate some and bring back to their original flavor and stock them up for winter months. I did last year and turned out great. I will do this year too up to now only few figs split but most stayed good. One other thing picking everyday is very helpful too.
I want to show some ugly side of the figs too not everything pretty. Roberts golden rainbow was a very hyped up two year ago and people paid very high price for the cuttings. But this is my second year getting ripe figs from it and my opinion is the same as last year. It is bigger size fig thats about it and if you compare to Yellow long neck I am sure Yellow long neck fig will beat this out. Do not get impressed for bigger size and pretty pictures.
@Naeem I’ve often heard those two could be the same fig. I’ve been wanting to try to grow one in ground for a few years but this might persuade me not too. Is yours in a pot?
Yes in pot and did not like it at all. Yellow Long Neck and Roberts golden rainbow in my observation two different figs but people says they are same but its not proven to me. For their hardiness I do not know.
. Too many to name individually all main crop.
. ( Salem Dark 08-25-21 )