Congrats! One of my 2 1/2 year old in-ground VdB has a couple of dozen figs. The few breba crop we got from this tree were excellent, so hopefully I'll be able to eat some tasty main crop figs in a few weeks! My Mission fig isn't doing anything...

Congratulations Moses!

I also find my fig growing to be a great pleasure! I have been getting some ripe main crop figs trickling in over the past 3 1/2 weeks, but over the past 3 days it has turned into a torrent! More and more plants are starting to add their ripening figs to the mix. Yesterday I think I picked 22 figs from 18 varieties and there are a lot more varieties about to start. For the most part the quality has been excellent, but as always, there are occasional figs which do not ripen evenly.

Have you considered putting any plants in ground? Most of mine are in self-watering pots but I have a number of hardier plants in the ground, and I have had several figs from my in-ground Florea, one yesterday from Sal's, and a couple are about to ripen on my in-ground Hardy Chicago. The Sal's and HC each have hundreds of figs I expect to ripen before mid-October

Good luck with the rest of the fig season, to everyone!

Moses glad to hear they exceed your expectations .

Our crop this year is kaput except inground hardy chicago as mother nature helped in thinning out some plants that did not wake up heavy late season rains last year was the culprit as the root systems rotted , they were inspected and discarded . A few woke in July one in August to late to produce a ripe crop.

This was the first time experiencing this in many many growing seasons.

No big a deal but lesson learned.

Martin

Thank you all for your responses!

Jason,

Ronde de Bordeaux is one I hope to get soon. It has quite a following, and always seems to be at the top of all lists for flavor. My Mission is one productive fig tree. Do you have any ideas why yours is not showing its potential?

eboone,

You're on a roll. I suspect you are following a methodology in having so many different varieties, 18+. When you find which ones do the best for you, they will be your focus trees, no? If yes, that's what I am doing, too. I've already eliminated Celeste, seems not to be adaptable to my growing conditions, by dropping all its figs again this year as it did last year...grew like a weed, though, but good bye, Celeste.

My fig 'Orchard,' is a 20' x 25' cement car pad, no longer used for cars. The heat generated in it, and my black nursery pots, is the saving force behind my success in this otherwise, damp, cloudy part of the USA...not the best fig country environment. I have no place to grow figs in ground, period.

Martin,

I am very sorry for your fig tragedy. If it's any consolation to you, it was not until I read your response above that I figured out why my Olympia and Yellow Longneck practically died to the ground (in pots). They overwintered in cold storage in my fruit cellar along with all my other fig trees, the rest of which came through winter like nothing was amiss. The Olympia and Yellow Longneck were overwatered over winter, accidentally.

I had baby fig trees in small pots placed upon the soil of these two big figs' much bigger pots. Watering the baby trees which drained into their big pots, along with the watering I gave the big figs evidently rotted the roots enough to severely injure them.

They practically died back to the soil, and grew extremely slowly from the ground. I'm fortunate I did not kill them.

I truly did not realize I had overwatered them until a light went off in my head when I read your tragic report.

So, you see, your tragedy had a positive lesson in it for me! I will not make that mistake again. Thank you, Martin!

Moses

Moses, I’m not sure where you are located in W.Pa, but I’m in the Irwin area. Love to have you come over some time if you are not too far away; we can put an airlayer on my RdB and some others for you, talk about figs. My email is eboonemd at yahoo dot com if you want to chat about it

Congrats Moses,

my trees are also staring to ripen some fruit, my mount etnas are in full swing ,picking figs every day from them.

Deerhunter,

Thanks! You surely deserve congratulations more than I do.

Now that's a bowl of figs! What varieties are represented there? Do I see a Brown Turkey (or is it a Magnolia), at the upper right in your photo? Both my Brown Turkey and Magnolia are producing tennis ball sized figs, identical in size and taste. I expected that from Magnolia, but not Brown Turkey. They are both 3 yr. olds, and this is their first year ripening figs, not many on each tree, but off to a good start. Even their foliage and growth habit, spreading, not upright, is identical.

Keep up the good work. The fruits of it are well worth it.

Moses

there are a few varieties in the bowl , the one your talking about is a Niagra Blk, but there is also RDB, MBVS, Gino Blk, Hardy chic, and a few of my unks

Niagra Blk

Deerhunter,

Which is your favorite and why?

Those unknowns...God bless them: no names, no sure parentage known, but doing their best anyway.

I prune my trees in late fall, after a few frosts and the leaves are falling. This past fall I threw a bunch of trimmings onto a pile where they sat all winter, unprotected, fully exposed to the full brunt of winter, on top of cement paving.

In the spring I tossed them all, looking as dead as death can look, onto a little compost pile expecting them to rot and make compost. Three of those 8 -14" trimmings rooted and sprouted where they touched the top of the compost. Some of those trimmings were very much alive!

In early July, I carefully dug them, potted them up, and now they are 14-16" baby fig trees. I have no sure idea what varieties they are, but probably all are Hardy Chicago, but who knows until they produce fruit. Their foliage looks identical to each other right now so they could all be the same variety, but you know how unreliable it is to make a positive identification by foliage alone.

Moses

I have a lot of favorites for different reasons, if I had to choose strictly for quality and flavor and didn't care about quantity I would have to go with Figo Preto or Black Maderia which are very similar, but I enjoy eating figs and I like quantity, so I lean towards the mount etnas and Adriatics like Strawberry verte and battaglia green, and unk Astoria green .

Moses, I had to add this photo of my concrete pad fig orchard as well - about 40 pots in 2-bucket SIPs. Fortunately for me I also have some space to grow them in ground

Very nice eboone, some of the leaves on my trees are already starting to turn.

And adding a photo of my oldest in ground tree, a Sal's(Gene). It is almost 8 ft tall, covered with figs. This tree has had 3 winters in ground and and is 5 years old, It gets cut back to about 3 1/2 ft tall and covered with insulation and a tarp for the winter. I think it benefits by being planted next to the above ground pool you see behind it-a protected microclimate. This is the earliest year it has started fruiting, on 8/28. I also have a Hardy Chicago that is about the same size, a year younger, also getting figs now.

That's a nicely shaped, healthy looking tree, Ed. Good work. Do you prune before winterization? Any soil amendments used: lime, fertilizer, etc.? How do you handle late spring frosts after unwrapping?

Moses

Got something to share too.

Black Madeira & Col de Dame Blanc

excellent harvest every day.

I am not sure if the pictures will upload.

Really enjoying the pictures.

Martin

Very nice

bluemoonlight - those look great!

Moses - that Sal's is actually a 3 - 3.5 inch single trunked tree. All of the branches come off the main trunk. I prune it down to about 3 and a half ft tall and prune the branches back fairly short to make it easy to cover.

I think I fertilized it the first year in ground, but not since. I have not added lime or any other additives. About 5-6 inches under the surface of the soil is a thick bed of limestone so I think the plant gets all of the calcium it needs there.

In the spring when it is past any severe cold weather, I unwrap the in ground trees. If it is going to frost I throw the tarp back over (but have not securely re-wrapped it then).

Had Sals some years back growing side by side with hardy chicago. Sals originally came from Belleclare nursery and Mike the owner from Edible landscaping bought Sals from them . At the time i called ours "Sals EL" when in conversation on the forums.

Wrote about Sals and Hardy Chicago on F4F years back along with some observations of both plants as they are similar but there are differences.

Good tree Sals is.

Martin

Can any one recognize these fig.

I having difficulty to make new post.

Also adding a comment is a problem.

After the comment failsI get these message that says Somthing went wrong

error 500.

How can I fix it .

These two pictures didn't upload with first post.

I am jealous of the beautiful figs you produced this year. I have an old mature fig tree that has been prolific for the past 16 years that I have owned the house. . This year only one fig ripened, many green figs still on the tree. Not sure why other than it has been a very wet and cloudy summer. I am in zone 7a southern Maryland.

That is to bad, but there is still time for a few more to ripen happy2b...gw !

Do you know the variety, the name of your fig tree ?

Happy,

A late spring can delay leaf out and subsequent figlet formation by as much as a month. Coupled with a cool, overcast, and wet fall, a fig's ripening can be considerably delayed. Every year presents different conditions, and the fig trees respond accordingly.

All is not lost, just wait and see if the weather dries up, gets warmer, and sunnier. A remarkable improvement may be the result. Better a late ripening crop, than none at all.

All my figs are pot grown, and I was almost a month late putting them out this past spring, because of the late spring here. The crop was not delayed as one would have expected because of the hot, sunny, and dry summer here. My gas utility bill stated that the average temperature from Aug. 22 to Sept. 21 was 74°F this year, but 65°F for the same period last year, 2017. Weather conditions really effect ripening.

Moses