Fruits and Nuts: The fig trees I like (or not), 1 by pbyrley

pbyrley wrote:
I live in an area that some years has frozen my smaller fig trees to the ground. I now protect them with wrapping of some sort. They almost always rebound well. Better still they do not seem to be bothered by bugs or diseases here (take that, you Japanese beetles). Given these mostly positive attributes, I became a minor collector of varieties. As I am enjoying eating my figs a lot this year, I want to report on my personal opinions.

First, I LOVE Celeste. It has, to me, the best tasting fruit and is about the most cold hardy fig. This year it ripened here from late July through September(?) - It's still mid August and I (and my dog, Pepper) eat some every day. I actually have 2 Celeste trees from very different sources; a Celeste I bought from Lowes in Huntersville, NC in about 2003 which I just call Celeste. Another tree, I call LaCeleste, I rooted from a sprig I got from a friend in Louisiana. I was curious if they would be different - my judgement is that they aren't.

My second favorite in Black Mission, slightly less cold hardy, but delicious to eat. Just started ripening in mid August. I bought the Black Mission from Lowes in Huntersville, NC about 2001 and it grew well. I rooted a small one to transport to Wake Forest when we moved in 2007. I planted it on the S. side of our new house and the tree grew well, got up to about 10 feet. I cut out a small sprout from the root and planted it in another place in 2008. I have never seen the first fig form on the large tree by the house - although it looks healthy, something is wrong with the soil. The rootling this Summer has at least 25 figs on it and they are already ripening and taste great (as their "grandmother's" figs did in Huntersville). After I realised that result, I dug up the mother fig and will use to space to plant another blueberry bush. Moral, if your fig tree doesn't produce figs - MOVE it! That's my dog Pepper enjoying a black mission fig in Huntersville, NC about 2006.

I have a Hardy Chicago which is, as advertised, cold hardy here and the dark purple figs are very good when they fully ripen.

I quit brown turkey which gets a lot of press in the South but I think it doesn't have a wonderful taste - just alright in my book. Dug it up and threw it away.

I have LSU Purple - a smallish fig that I have in a pot on my deck. It seldom bears much fruit - almost certainly my container technique is at fault. I planted a rootling in the yard last Spring so I will see if it is worthy of my time next Summer.

I greedily read several good online nurseries' descriptions and bought an LSU Gold Fig tree 3 or 4 years ago. The tree grew well and is beautiful but this year, the first with a good crop, really disappointed me. The very large fruit is, to my taste, just mushy and sweet with no interesting other tastes. I had rooted one and planted it in a choice spot behind my garage - it also bore a lot of fruit this year - I am so disenchanted with LSU Gold that I dug up the rootling, with green figs still on the branches and threw it in the woods. By the way, LSU Gold is still under patent protection so I wrote to LSU attorney and received a limited permission to root "a small number" of copies for gifts or personal use only. I will now tell the two people to whom I gave a rooted copy that I thought the fruit is not worth my yard space. The foliage is beautiful (but so is Celeste foliage).

Finally, I have a Green Greek fig which a friend gave me a sprig of to root. It is doing well and its fruit looks very much like LSU Gold, just a little smaller on my tree. It has ripe figs which I can compare with the LSU Gold figs. The Green Greek figs have a much more interesting taste than LSU Gold and I enjoy eating them very much.

I don't know if anyone is interested in all this detail, perhaps someone will be. I will be happy to respond to questions or comments. I also would welcome your suggestions.

Paul