I would bet a lot of the fig haters have never tried a perfectly ripe good variety fig. And I’m not talking about Brown Turkey, those are horrible! Here is a green fig seedling I found on the river by my house. The figs are at different ripening stages, but all really close to perfect. The other figs are premium varieties at close to perfect ripening. Some have deep berry flavors, some are more sweet, some both. They are also very good for you, and pretty easy to grow in pots or ground. For years my wife has hated figs, she now eats them often and loves them, especially the seedling I found at the river which tastes like boysenberry. If they are not ripe they are terrible though, just like most figs.
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Great looking figs!
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Amazing looking figs Jon! Totally agree with you…
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Beautiful figs! I assume you live in California if you’re finding random seedlings. Any idea if it can fruit without the wasp?
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I ended up chopping down the violette de bordeaux this year and grafted it over to scion from a fig at my kid’s school that produces tons of nice figs with few splitters. I think it is brown turkey. My celeste produced a ton of nice ones last year with minimal splits despite plenty of rain. Wish i could say the same about VdB. I discovered dried figs too and celeste makes a super sweet dried fig. I also like the esrly ripening of celeste and BT because they are mostly done when the yellow jackets ramp up. So maybe i have settled in to a couple of varieties that work here. Figs are off of my most dissapointing fruit list!
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Aronia berries. I didn’t think they’d be great, but dang—mealy, astringent and generally unpleasant. Hope they can be cooked into something good, because they sure aren’t worth eating raw. Was going to experiment with them some this fall/winter, but fruit set got gonked by our late freezes. Oh well.
I actually really like good figs. Some well-ripened Malta Black figs are among the very best-tasting things I’ve ever grown. We’re talking about little bags of excellent strawberry jam here! (And who wouldn’t like that?) Figs are disappointing, though, insofar as they have a hard time producing their best in my humid Kentucky climate. Too much rain (and we often get way too much), and they’re terrible—and in rainy, humid weather the skins sometimes get fungal infections that make them taste like old, moldy leaves . . . .yech! The hairy-fruited ones—like the Mt. Etna types—seem to be the most susceptible to these nasty skin infections. And then there are the SWDs, which start becoming a problem in September. Maggot-filled balls of corruption are always disappointing.
Some individual cultivars are also disappointing. Ronde de Bordeaux figs looks tasty—but, thus far, I have not enjoyed eating them, except those very few that got to hang until wrinkly-ripe. Those were good, and had a hint of something spicy that reminded me a little of glazed beets. They usually don’t get to hang that long here, though—especially with their very open eye. When picked merely ripe, the skin has an unpleasant green flavor. I dunno, maybe the fruit will get better as the plants age? I hope so.
Actually, all of my biggest plant disappointments usually involve finding that something touted as “problem-free” is anything but. For instance, I love ground cherries—generally regarded as an easy-to-grow plant—, but for the past several years mine have gotten some sort of disease that takes them out before I can get a decent harvest. (BTW, I think it’s a virus—possibly transmitted by thrips. Am going to spray religiously this year). And then there are figs again. Spray-free? Not for me. Somebody sent me fig bud mites (+FMD!) along with my first sticks. They infested everything and spread fig mosaic to most of what I had. I sprayed and sprayed and sprayed. And they may (or may not!) be gone, but I’m still spraying!
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Santa Rosa plum. Probably just doesnt do well in my area. I planted it along with Shiro and Satsuma and a pluot. The pluot and other plums are doing fine. Santa Rosa throws just a couple flowers, and has never set fruit that lasted through to ripe. I am going to graft in something else next spring i think.
I wonder if it gets too much water?
Ours was put into a former kiddy sand box. Talk about well-drained! I remember to lay some compost or liquid fertilizer most years in latest winter or spring. otherwise my wife abuses it by cutting more stalks every other week. Into August. Makes me shudder, but she hasn’t killed it yet, so I keep mum.
We got this from a neighbor or friend 20 years ago. Wish I could be more help, except to say, “Try what rhubarb someone has got too much of and can spare at the end of winter.”
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Oh. Yum!
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Probably the most delicious photos of figs i have ever seen, i can almost taste them.
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Thanks @PharmerDrewee, I am in Orangevale, California. I have a plant I rooted last fall that has a bagged fig on new growth that looks like it may ripen in late June. If it ripens is the big question, looking good so far. The mother tree does not have a breba crop.
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I love when one finds good wild figs. Especially if common. I’m more interested in them lately just to see how they do in colder zones. I have 5 or 6 wilds now. All are young though. La Joya, Holy Smokes, Valley Black and others. I love old heirlooms too, so many though. I just added San Donato Di Ninea. FMD owed me a tree and I forgot about it. He emailed to say he was sending San Donato Di Ninea, nice surprise! I also recently added Rigato del Salento PB as it is supposed to be the earliest ripening rimada type. It should work here, hope so! Eric owed me that one. I’m also rooting figs from Thierry who owns a fig orchard in France. Been around for a long time and has as good a collection as Pons.
Down the road once bigger I will have cuttings of all of them.
On Donato Frank on F4F thanks the guys who made it available, he said this.
"FMD (Frank) said
“Lou, I just wanted to thank you formally for conserving and distributing this wonderful fig from San Donato Di Ninea. What a great back story!
Joe Grandinetti kindly sent me a few cuttings 3 years ago and last fall it produced dozens of delicious figs. Like Joe, I have a passion for figs from Calabria having been born and raised there for the first 7 years of my life.
I consider this fig to be in my top 5 in taste, vigor, and productivity. Having a tight eye (in humid Florida) is a terrific bonus.
Thanks Lou and Joe”
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@Drew51, I will save a few cuttings for you next year if it turns out common, Its a great fig!
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That would be awesome, thanks. Oh I did get June Pride to take at last, still small. I had other high hopes, but lost a tree with numerous grafts, oh well. Another tree suffered a lot and just didn’t take to being grafted. Wet feet, we had flooding, first time ever! The tree made it though, but it’s weak. I didn’t graft on it this year.
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Great news on the June pride! Sorry to hear about the flooding, that will almost always kill a tree. You have a huge fig collection, very nice!
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I do need to trim the herd! . It’s hard but some have to go every year. Trying to keep what works best here. And a few just for kicks. Your fruit collection is very impressive with some excellent quality fruit! Every time you post something want it! I’m playing around with fruit trying to find what works, what excites my taste buds. It’s been a blast so far. You’re good photographer too. I love photography although I like to find art in nature and try to capture it.How I like to relax. I wish I had better equipment though. Soon I hope to upgrade.
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Couldn’t have said it better, and your pics are worth a thousand words!!!
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Without spraying the only way they work here is to harvest them all. Regardless of SWD. If you let them finish their life cycle, it’s over. The numbers become too much.
I have two baskets when picking. One for SWD fruits, the other for non infected.
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I can understand not enjoying the texture of figs. Some people don’t like how soft they are. That’s fine, but I feel bad for those people, haha. Personally, I think it’s like eating jam atop the best toast nature could have created, the skin.
The flavor is often weak when from specific varieties, on young trees, in climates with too much humidity and not enough heat during ripening and in soils with too much moisture. Additionally, if you never pick the fruit properly, it’ll be like eating a store bought fig. 90% of commercial figs from CA are really low quality and it would be an accurate assessment to rate them as a disappointing fruit.
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Would you mind sharing a picture of your blueberry cage system? Do you put anything under the raised beds so that the added soils ph isn’t altered by the soil already present?