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Figs won't ripen...

11 years ago

Hello Everyone,

Hoping someone can give me some suggestions. I am in Phoenix and planted a Violette de Bordeaux last spring. It receives full sun, in a sheltered back yard. It has grown to about 8 feet tall, with healthy dark green leaves, and while a lot of figs appear and grow, they don't ever seem to become ripe. The closest thing to ripe were two that were dark in color, but when cut open, they were dry, coarse, and not sweet at all. It has four drip lines (open, no drippers on them) that run for an hour total throughout the day. It has been given fruit tree fertilizer twice over the past year. And it's never been pruned. Would a photo help? Any ideas? Thanks so much!

Comments (5)

herman2_gw
11 years ago
This is how Violette de Bordeaux was performing in Phoenix Arizona,By Grower :Frozen Joe,described on the forum "Figs4fun.
As you can see your tree is not near like his.
It is young now but if next year it keep making dry inedible fruits ,discard it,it must be a seedling.
For now find out PH value in soil and apply powder limestone if acidic,to bring it to 7 ,neutral.

Violette de Bordeaux - This tree was an aggressive grower. It produced a dozen brebas. Their quality was from good to excellent. Medium size. Good texture. Fruit rating 9. It produced many dozens of main crop figs. Their quality was from poor to excellent. Medium size. Poor to good texture. Fruit rating 8. The most productive in my collection; it was the best fig this year in the spring and the fall.
Doglips
11 years ago
I saw a you tube vid where a guy pruned bunches of leaves off of the tree. The idea being that the tree was under stress ( as if winter was approaching) and needed to get the fruit to market.
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I have 2 fig trees in my yard, a 3 year old brown turkey and a 2 year old celeste. Both have experienced good growth since planting and appear to be very healthy. Last year and this year both trees were loaded with figs and I did get a few ripe figs from each tree. But most of the figs on both trees remained a little small, green and hard and never did ripen. These trees are in the same area that I had another celeste fig tree in a few years ago and that tree always produced large quantities of ripe figs. I have no idea what the problem is and hope someone has some ideas.
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If you still have the Cayennes and Jalapeno plants right next to each other (I am assuming around 1 inch) hold on to the seeds and plant them next year you might produce a cool hybrid! This is also my first year growing peppers. Next year I would like to experiment on growing some hybrids. I am growing Cayenne as well; they take awhile to ripe on the plant. My best estimate would be around a month. I am a first year grower, so take the following statements with a grain of salt. You are correct rain is a large factor in pepper growing. If you have an over watering issue the plant leaves will turn to a yellow color. This is a sign of wet feet, roots have become over saturated. This year I planted my pepper plants 6 inches apart when they should have been around a foot apart. I did this intentionally as I did not have a lot of earth to plant on. Plants being close together compete for soil nutrients, but as long as they are producing pods it sounds like they are doing fine. From reading around the forum, aphids sound like a common insect problem. They are a small yellow tick looking thing, but again you would see damaged leaves on your plants if this was happening. If you don't have any plant damage (yellow discolored or holes in the leaves) I would say that youÂre fine. In my opinion it sounds like you just have to wait around on the pods to mature and become ripe. Yes, I know this takes a while. hope this helps Good luck!
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foolishpleasure
11 years ago
I have one tree like that. Figs do not ripen and if ripined it is dry and tasteless. It is labeled brown turkey by the nursery. I have other brown turkey which are 8 feet away produces sweet eatable figs, I decided to cut its branches and use it as a rootstock.
rickc_2010
11 years ago
Herman knows figs, follow his advice. Also I ran into that trouble past years and snipped the tops and stunted long growth which allowed the plant to focus on fig production. This is working very well. Rick C
Gilian Gilbert
8 years ago
will try this this year

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