In my experience sun kissed figs are the best.

Dave,

Also, that's why it is so important to grow the earliest ripening figs. In my opinion the quality all around: flavor, sweetness, great texture, etc., is better on the figs that ripen before September 15 here.

Since figs on the same tree ripen over a number of weeks, getting the earliest start with the earliest ripeners means the majority of them will ripen during the hotest, driest, longest and sunniest days of the harvest season. Hoping we get a hot, sunny, dry fall is 'pie in the sky,' setting ourselves up for frustration when one in five years has this combination of ideal late season conditions.

I am beginning to think I would rather grow 10 earliest ripening trees of the same variety, than have a collection of differing varieties of variously scheduled ripeners. They all take the same care, so the late, hit or miss ripeners, can be freeloaders!

Moses

Besides the Hardy Chicago, what other early ripeners do you recommend?

Dave,

These are the ones that ripen the earliest for me:

1. Little Ruby - What a delicious fig it is! Ping pong ball size, but watermelon sized flavor! If you like Fig Newtons, Little Ruby's flavor is identical to them. It started ripening on July 28th., this year. This is its third year for me, acquired as a tiny 3" tissue cultured slip of a thing in 2016. It is precocious. Last year, 2017, it produced 12 figs that promptly dropped just before ripening. I thought this was a bad omen of disappointment ahead. Boy, was I wrong!This year it produced 70 figs, dropping none, about 10 of which are still ripening. It is a miniature fig tree....small tree, small foliage, small figs, currently 16"H x 24"W. She's getting some drastic pruning for next year to make her more upright growing. I do not envision her ever getting more than 3-4 feet tall, even with very light pruning. Any pot bigger than 10 gal. would be too large, IMHO.

2. Petite Nigra

3. Violette de Bordeaux

4. Little Miss Figgy (supposed to be a cross between Chicago Hardy and Violette de Bordeaux, aka.Negrone)

5. Black Spanish Mission

6. Beers Black

7. Green Ischia

8. Conadria

All the above fig trees ripen the majority, 80-90%, of their main crops between the first week of August until September 15, for me. That's ripening over a 6 week period. They are all delicious figs. Little Ruby has been described above. It's color is caramel brown. The next five figs are black and richly figgy/raspberry/sweet molasses flavored.

Green Ischia and Conadria are super sweet and mild flavored, not nearly as strongly flavored as the first 6 figs, still very nice in their own right.

Moses

I'm trying to keep it simple with one dark RDB and one light Atreano. Both have excellent flavor.

Figs will not usually develop the taste one expects when ripening later in season coupled with taking longer to do so its normal as the sun loses its intensity coupled with cooler temps especially at night .

Ronde de Bordeaux would be a fig in the early ripening category a very good eating fig subjective to ones palate and a fast easy growing cultivar.

Martin

Too much water can make figs bland. I've heard many people will pick their figs a little early (not quite fully ripe) if heavy rains are forcasted - they'd rather a tasty, not quite ripe fruit over a washed-out fully ripe fig.

I don't have that problem here...much the opposite.

It's a good question, I have some that are looking to become ripe in the next week or so. The amount of sun has been cut back 2 or 3 hours (gone behind trees). We'll see how much colour they get. I might top it once more to see if anymore figs come..

In ground fig is growing(pictured below) potted one is just sitting there.

Here's a few pictures of the remaining figs. I picked the 3 in the first photo today.

The one I had wasn't as sweet as previous figs.... Apparently the other one was sweet and had a massive eye. Bigger than the eye on the figs I picked last week (picture below)

Another picture from last week

Anyways, as you can see from this week's figs, they're not quite as dark... It's been raining alot. I left the 5 below on the tree. Tomorrow will be 28c and sunshine. It'll cool down to 5c by Friday night.

Even tho today's figs weren't dark purple/brown, they seem be ripe... They're soft and hang.