Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD) – a major pest of fruit ...

https://extension.unh.edu/resource/spotted-wing...

Jan 20, 2018 · January 20, 2018 Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD) is a vinegar gnat from China and Japan. It attacks ripening and ripe fruit of brambles (raspberry & blackberry), strawberry, blueberry, grape, cherry, plum and peach, plus many species of wild berries. We first discovered it in New Hampshire on September 6, 2011.

I am in zone 7 North Alabama. I have a Brown Turkey fig in the ground. I planted it in 2003 and It has only been killed to the ground once. It is huge. At least 20 feet tall and as wide. I get the main crop starting mid to late July through mid August. You have to pick daily.

What you are seeing now, is the 2nd crop. Some don't have two crops. Brown Turkey does and I usually don't get near as much from the second, mainly because of dry weather. If it get too dry, the tree drops the green fruit.

I gave away two good size buckets and one huge bucket of fresh. I put up about eight pints of fig preserves and we ate fresh off the tree and out of the frig all we wanted. That was after sharing with the birds, squirrels, chipmunks, and one very young raccoon my husband saw last week, just before dawn.

I like to pick my figs when they are brown and start to droop. They will pull off easily. I prefer no stem to can or I will cut the stem to be barely there. I can mine whole, if you like the mashed jam style, you don't want any stem.

ETA: This blog has good information.

http://www.walterreeves.com/?s=fig

Thanks Sherry, sounds like BT is doing well for you. One question, if it is 20' tall how do you pick the fruit at the top?

THIS video show a guy in Chadds Ford PA growing 300 figs for commercial sale of the fruit. He bends the branches over to protect them in the winter. This has got to be a labor of love.

For Zone 7, it would be much better to keep them in pots and shelter them in an unheated garage or shed for the winter. They will die to the ground with your winters. Just a freeze won't kill the stems, but sustained sub freezing weather will. I am in Zone 8a, north Texas and all of mine died to the ground last winter.

For Sherry, North Alabama is right on the border of Zones 8a and 7b, so she likely has some better winters. Being in the South, you will also see longer summers.

Zone 7 is a large area, and depending on where in Zone 7 you are, you may end up with longer seasons or shorter seasons. This will determine if the fruit would ripen for you or not. If you are in Zone 7 CT, you have a much shorter growing season and i would not recommend Figs at all.

You will also want to check on any micro climates that you have. up against a southern facing wall you could have a nice micro climate that allows you to grow figs in the ground. When I lived in Zone 5 NE, I planted some chicago hardy figs against the south wall of my house, and it provided shelter from the north winds, warmed the soil faster, and avoided the early frosts. Because of this, i was able to get a harvest from the Chicago hardy figs.

Figs peaking really depends on variety. My Olympus were peaking in late August, while my Ischia are peaking now. I have one other variety that is producing and those won't be ripe until October.

Speaking to Chicago Hardy, you must be careful with these, I ordered some from the same mail order store as the ones i planted back in NE, but the ones i got here in TX were much smaller fruits and no where near as tasty. So some places will send you a Chicago Hardy type of fig, not necessarily a proper named Chicago Hardy fig (I hope this makes sense).

Correct, anything that hasn't ripened by frost will die. Also, do not pic figs too early, they do not continue to ripen after being picked. Once you pick it, it is as good as it will ever be. Make sure that the fig is soft, and that it is nicely drooping on the plant when you pick it, that is the best way to tell when they are ready.

I am 7b. 15 miles from 7a and over 200 miles from 8a. I have no problem with either Celeste or Brown Turkey in ground, but I prefer Brown Turkey. No way would I fool with a fig in a pot. Assuming I could get a pot that large and keep it watered, lol.

We used a step stool or ladder for some figs and pulled the branches down for others. My husband did climb on top of the shed roof at the height of the crop. Mostly we left the ones a the tip top for the mockingbirds

ETA: However, to each their own. If you enjoy pots and have a place to put them, go for it. I got tired of any kind of pot outside that has to be moved in for the winter.

I had two brown turkey fig tree/bushes in Virginia, zone 7a. Both were large bushes, about 7 feet tall and almost that wide. I never did get the hang of pruning them into trees, or would have done so. Most years the main fruit crop came in starting in August, lasting into early October. Each plant had some branch tips die back over winter, and at least once one bush died to the ground. But it was well established by then and sprouted back so strong, by the end of summer it was almost back to normal.

Now I'm a little north of Charlottesville, in zone 6b. Figs require more careful siting, and extensive wrapping for winter, or they will fail to produce. Most years, 90% of the figs fail to ripen. But this year has been an exception -- figs started ripening early and are still producing. In Virginia zone 7, you can expect very good years. Good luck!

It’s toughest for them the first couple years much more suseptible to freeze damage.

It's possible sam_md caught those Charlottesville-area figs a month too early. If the plants were in a cooler location outside the city limits, they could easily be more like zone 6 than zone 7. And where I am in zone 6, fig production only took off in late Sept/early Oct. It's still going -- an unusually good year here.

I used to live in MD, right outside the DC line. I had Brown Turkey figs planted along the southern wall of the house. That wall kept them toasty, and the fruit was amazing! They were planted in the ground but the roots were in giant plastic pots to keep the tree size manageable. They froze to the ground twice over a period of 10 years, but came back the same year like nothing happened. I second other folks' advice to plant them in a sheltered spot, give them a south-facing wall, or keep them in pots that can be moved (e.g. when polar vortex strikes again).

Sam, I have a Sicilian fig gifted to me by a friend. It was brought from Sicily in the 1920s so not a normal cultivar for our area, Annapolis. I trim the three main branches back to three feet every winter, circle them with chicken wire, and stuff with leaves. That works for me, but the harvest time has ranged from late-August to a few ripening even now in late October. Depends on heat, rain, etc. I think. A neighbor has a brown turkey fig that hasn’t been trimmed in 20 years that she harvest late August to late September; she doesn’t care what eats the figs on the taller branches as long as she has enough for herself!

I freeze the figs we don’t eat immediately, and then make small batches of preserves through the winter in the microwave. That worked particularly well this year because I couldn’t find the wide mouth half-pint and pint jars I usually use.

so if I surround my BT fig (prob 8 yrs old with pw and cover with leaves. It won't freeze out? otherwise It dies back to ground I cut off the dead stems in spring. last 2 yrs I'm lucky to get about 4 to 6 figs before frost.. So far I covered it again last night top of with a tarp suspended over yellow PVC gas line bent into hoops...

thanks all