Figs-best tasting and most fruitful

10 years ago

I'm starting my fig garden soon and I was wondering two things:
Which variety is the best tasting grown at home?
And
Which variety is the most fruitful?

Thanks,
Trevor:)

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Comments (2)

girlbug2
10 years ago
Well trevor you could get as many answers as there are fig varieties in the world!

A lot of people on this forum have said that it all depends on where the fig is grown, if its best characteristics will be brought out. So the best tasting fig might be a regional thing, and also depend on soil and the weather that year. In my region, (southern California, zone 9/10, in a semi-coastal area), we don't have to worry about things like fruit souring because of summer rains, so the popular commerical varieties are Black Mission, Kadota, Conadria. For the desert, I pick Kadota, and for general climates on the West Coast, Black Mission. A dwarf version of Black Mission is Black Jack, which I grow.

However, since I started growing my own back yard figs several years ago I have tried other, less-known varieties, and two that stand out to me are Negronne (aka Violette de Bordeaux) and Panache Tiger. Their flavor is different from most other fig varieties -- an intensely sweet "jam" flavor -- and they can trump Black Jack and Kadota on a good year with long hot summers in my opinion. On a cooler year, they are still very good, but then I'd rather have Black Jack, which has a good quality independant of the weather.

So there is no simple answer to your question...

It might help to get recommendations if you could state your region and climate zone, because a lot of a fig's developing flavor depends on that. Fig forumites would then be able to give you answers more tailored to your situation.
MrClint
10 years ago
I have Black Jack, VdB and Panache. The best tasting fig always seems to be the one I'm eating at a given moment. I've never known of a fig tree that put out bad tasting figs. The most fruitful fig trees are the huge mission trees that have been around for a long time.
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Figs-best tasting and most fruitful

Comments (2)

girlbug2

MrClint

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