A great year for figs

Our Black Greek just gave us her first brebas.

They are the sweetest.

(o_O)

Those are crazy big.
We have a bumper year here as well. I think we have another 2 weeks before they are ready to pick.
Yay!!!!!

Right.

My other plants were never so full. They'll be another month or so.

Maybe it was the ungodly number of cold days this winter.

Who knows?

Be well

(o_O)

I am so happy that the crazy weather didn't kill all the new growth on my figs (like it did in 2008-09 Winter). My Celeste, which froze to the ground in Winter 08-09, came back in Spring 2009 and now has over 100 (I'd guess) figs, still green but nearly rip. It's 7' tall. My LSU Gold is still trying to put on a crop - just a few this year. Still no Black Missions but it didn't freeze last Winter so should have figs next year. I'm 20 miles N. of Raleigh, NC so it is a unpredictable zone - I don't really think Zone 7B is correct.

This is what my Greek White looks like today.

It's a little under six feet tall -- and even wider.

I have some figs on my brown turkey - still way too green but high at the top and so the deer haven't plucked.

I would love to taste just one!

My Chicago Hardy is setting figs. Just had a handfull last year - looks like this year will be better. the figs are tiny - but I don't have to wrap it in the winter - so tiny is good.

WOW

That is HARDY.

Be well

(o_O)

I actually saw one in a nursery in zone 4 and they never wrapped theirs! Mine has a sheltered location and it grows like crazy in the spring. The trees that are wrapped are better producers - but I have a lot of other things to do beside wrap my tree.

I have a Celeste back north in NJ.

It almost weathers each winter.

Each spring I cut it back severely -- then it takes off.

When I leave in the autumn it usually still has little fruit-lings. But I never get to eat them -- maybe the varmints do.

Be well

(o_O)

These just came off the tree this afternoon. They are a little under ripe because we ate all the ripe ones this morning and they were even bigger. The tree came with the yard and the neighbors said it has been here for decades.

Wow - look at those!

jujubetexas -

Beautiful big figs!
you don't know what cultivar these are do you? (probably not since you inherited the tree).

I keep planting different ones to see what is successful where I live - and I am enjoying trying large green or gold figs. I like the real sweet ones, don't care if the seeds are evident or not.

flyboyFL,
Your Greek white looks really nice and you do seem to have a bumper crop! Do you keep it that size through pruning or is it just young?

Paul

This message was edited Jul 19, 2010 9:35 AM

I guess it is young.

I have topped it a couple of times to keep it where I can reach the fruit.

Topping does make a more compact tree.

Be well

(o_O)

Hello flyboyFL,

I have been reading your comments about your fig trees and find it very interesting. I live in the Memphis, TN area and there are a lot of people around here with some huge fig trees. The one in this picture is probably one of the largest I have seen anywhere. It is well over 30 feet tall and the trunks are about eight inches in diameter. I don't know why they seem to grow so well around here because every now and then we will get a pretty cold winter. I guess once they make it through a couple of mild winters then they will have grown enough by then to survive the real cold ones when they occur. Don't know the variety either. I don't believe the fruit is as large as what we used to have in California when I lived there. And I don't think the fig trees in CA were any where near as tall as they seem to be here. They make nice shade trees and seem to be fairly tolerant of poor soil.

Good luck with your trees...

K4CLE,
I am so glad to read your post - for several years I have been asking (here and other sites) about large fig trees. I remembered (I thought) climbing my next door neighbor's fig tree in Augusta, GA, to pick figs (before she saw us and ran us off). This was about 1944 or 1945. I got no responses from anyone so I started wondering if it was just a wishful dream. I do love figs!

Must be about the roots being able to get down to river water (Augusta is on the Savannah Riv.) and I think I remember someone saying there were huge fig trees in Vicksburg, MS.

Anyhow, I am glad to hear your "report". If convenient, would you please post a photo of one of these large trees?

Thank you so much,

Paul

K4~

That is one beautiful tree.

I still have a Celeste back in NJ. But it freezes down to about 24 inches each winter -- and then recovers -- and puts out fruit -- each summer.

I top these in Florida so that I don't need a ladder to pick them.
I have one Brown Turkey that is starting to take over. I had it espaliered against the house -- but had to release it when the siding was painted -- so it's uncontrollable right now. Little does it know how I am planning to exercise my pruning shears once the fruit is picked !!!

Be well

(o_O)

Pbyrley I don't have a picture right now but we have 30 ft or so Brown turkey fig trees here in SC. I live about 15 miles from Savannah BTW. They do get big. How long that takes??? Not sure.

Flyboy I think you may be right on the cold winter and heavy fruit sets. My figs are loaded and strangely all my citrus trees are loaded. Can't say my bananas liked the winter, they came back but it will be another year or two for them to get big again. I don't grow those for fruit, just for show no go.

Core~

My bananas still haven't popped out the blossoms. It was cold, but didn't visually damage them. I have them staggered -- so who knows.

As for citrus -- this was an off year for grapefruit and oranges, but the Key limes and Meyer lemons are doing well.

My Brown Turkey is now loaded -- ate the first one today -- delicious. It's about nine feet tall -- heavy -- and still climbing..

Be well

(o_O)

Birds didn't devastate my blueberries too bad, but my Texas Everbearing figs are being demolished!!!! Pecked to the stem!!!

Guess I'm just raising bird feeders (sigh).

Susan
Jackson MS

Zonkel:

Cover it with a netting.

Be well

(o_O)

My Hardy Chicago tree is producing "tons" of figs this year - more than I can eat. Yippee!

Lucky!

Be well

(o_O)

I'm in Seattle where the trees do fine but fruit production is low. And when they do produce and ripen there are usually ants in them. I can't pick them before they ripen, can I? The ants seem to keep a better eye on them than I do.

I have been having some luck by picking them early and letting them ripen -- in the open.

Be well

(o_O)

It'll be a great year.

The Greek White today

Be well

(o_O)

You all are making me jealous. With our cold winter we had here in PA my brown turkey fig died back to the roots. But it has come back. I don't think I will get any fruit this year but I now have branches 3 ft tall.

Hope springs eternal. Good luck.

Be well

(o_O)

drobarr I have a Chicago Hardy fig that dies back most years and still produces every year. You might get fruit . . .

I will keep my fingers crossed. ;)

Digging out the dehydrator.

Too many to eat -- or give away.

Count'em

Be well

(o_O)

AYankeeCat,

You were right. I do have several small fruit now forming. :)

Me too! I hope there are enough for more fig jam this year.

I am very surprised how well my brown turkey fig has been doing considering it completely died down to the ground during the 2013-2014 winter...but as you can see it has quite a bit of growth and several fruits forming.

See -- good things happen.

My Brown Turkey is the last to ripen -- but it is loaded..

Be well

(o_O)

Hi, all!

I came to the "Forums" looking if there was a Fig Forum--and then ran across
this Thread. It is OK--I will ask you all....

Most of the Posts here are from warmer regions--eg. FL, GA, TX, etc.
I live in Baltimore, MD. Zone 7a. We can have nasty winters--like last year.

I do not have any Fig trees, but my neighbor had a humongous one--
up to her 2nd floor windows. They are from Spain--and someone brought a
cutting of this Fig they have had in a suitcase 35 yrs. ago.
I do not know the name of it. She just always called it her "Spanish Fig".
They are sooo honey sweet--green when ripe--Med. sized--pear-shaped fruit.

Her husband passed away 4 years ago. This was HIS tree. He always took care of it.
Last summer it did not produce too many figs. She was away in Spain and i was
attending to her garden a bit. There were not many to eat.....bummer! I love them!

I took a few cuttings to root--(this was in fall of 2012) just for fun and to share on DG
if they rooted and grew. Well--one of them made it.
I took good care of it--kept it under my seed set-up lights and it made it through it's first
winter (under the lights) like a champ. It grew well, and by spring I had a nice-sized
healthy cutting, slowly leafing out.

It was all MINE--still--all during the summer of 2013. I was going to pass it on to someone
at our Spring Swap.
When my neighbor returned from her 3 months in Spain, she decided that she no
longer wanted the huge tree rubbing against her house and had it cut down--to the ground.
It was an impetuous decision, but that is how she operates....Then, usually, has regrets.

Early this summer, we were talking sitting at my patio table. The harsh winter had taken it's toll.
Any new growth (since she had it cut down) had frozen to the ground.
She was close to tears--as all her children had also lost their young Fig trees, passed down
and grown from cuttings from their father's tree. Now they had nothing to "carry on" with.
I had to bite my tongue not to say--"SO? Why did you have it cut down????"

This touched me--and I got up and brought her the one cutting that I had nurtured and
grown and said--"This is yours!"...It was now about 12" tall and healthy. She cried with joy.
And then--all the dead figs grew back from the roots into monster bushes.

My cutting is now 3' tall and sturdy in a 1gal pot. I will still give it to her to pass on
to whomever she wants to--but none of them are gardeners. It will be up to me
to tell them how to care for it through the coming winter. I am NOT keeping it!

SO--NOW I get to the reason I wrote to you all. Thanks for reading all this so far.

I will be taking cuttings again off of many of the new grown stems--as there is
NO way she can allow all these to grow out. it has to be selectively pruned NOW!
Yes! I will root the tops of most of the cuttings again. Maybe even the stems below the tops.

My question is:
1--Should a well growing, healthy, rooted fig cutting be still brought into the house for the
second winter????? See pic #1.
Somewhere--someone had written that that is what needs to be done.
I realize that IF they plant this new Fig I have grown in the garden it will need to be
wrapped in something and insulated so it can make it through this coming, equally
nasty winter.

2--OR--should I tell whomever takes this new fig I have rooted that it still needs to be
taken inside as a houseplant and grown as such until next spring?

Your opinions, please.....and thanks for reading my long Post.

Gita

1--The Fig cutting I have grown--now about 3' tall---2 years old.

2--The new growth from the roots since it was frost-killed.
Several of these stems will be cut back to the ground and I will get them
to start to root new cuttings. Getting late! She better make up her mind
about which ones I cana cut back!

Gita:

WOW. That is some story.

I confess to be a newly fig grower. My best variety (among seven) also was purloined off of a neighbor's tree. It, too, came over in a suitcase from Greece. This is my "Greek white" (I named it.) Pretty weird, though -- it is now pushing out a second crop. (See photo.)

I started while I was a commuter -- and took a plant (Celeste) back to Princeton, where we had a temporary home. It died back each winter, but had still flourished when we left it there.

I think, that in order to bear fruit it needs be in the ground. But, who knows. Your potted plant looks gorgeous, but.

Good luck -- let me need if you decide to become a grower and need cuttings.

Be well

(o_O)

flyboy--Ti kanis?

Thanks for replying....Your figs look scrumptious.

I live in a develpment. very tight quarters for anything to plant.
I will not be growing any figs in my garden. I barely have room for flowers
and some perennials. The two big Maples in my back yard don't help.
Roots everywhere....

I will "instruct" the recipient of this fig to plant it in the garden--not keep it in a pot.
After that--it is no longer my responsibility.

Not sure the spelling of this..But---Efharisto!

Gita:

I am fine. Old -- but fine. Hope that you are well.

This year is pretty weird. First time my Celeste and Greek White are newly leaved and bearing a robust crop. Hope the cold weather holds off.

Take care of your plant. Find a sunny spot and plant it deep. Make a cage and fill it with leaves -- around it. Tear up an old telephone book in half and cover the hole at grade.

And -- I am not Greek -- only the two original cuttings I purloined are.

So -- enjoy -- be well -- and eiste efprosdektoi

(o_O)