Reviving this awesome apple thread. I was reading through what I posted and I am amused by how quickly things change. at least half of the apples I listed have fallen off my own list. I've grafted over most of my spigold because it's really not that good after all. Mutsu is also somewhat uninteresting these days. Here is my new list of favorites: - coconut crunch is extraordinary in our climate and keeps really well - sinta, fruited for the first time last Fall, delicious strong pineapple flavor - Fiesta, really good for a Summer apple - Williams pride, my tastiest Summet apple after Viking - Orin, great storage apple that still has that tropical pineapple flavor in March - alkmene, yummy summer August apple that tastes lime a cox but even better - kidds orange red, superb in the Fall - Haralson, fruits well here in California and its good - transparente de cronkels, delicious and high quality I still love gravenstein, hauer pippin and granny smith off my old list. I am curious what will stand out this year, as it surely won't be the same as last year. -

Flavor will often depend in growing conditions and is quite subjective. My favs: Sweet orange: Trovita--very productive; Lane Late--very productive; (Cara-cara only ok here on a very young tree, but really good from the grocery store :) Mandarin: Pixie, Clementine, [Satsuma (Owari)], Gold Nugget--all quite productive. Grapefruit: hybrids Cocktail grapefruit (soo good!) and Oroblanco. I never met a tangelo that I like. Minneola seems to be an aggressive grower, haven't had home-grown fruit. Temple Tangors (aka Royal mandarin) and Ortaniques are supposed to be very good, but I haven't liked them much though I have yet to have home-grown. I fully expect the Temple to not be good here, but you may do well with them in a greenhouse setting (they like heat). You may wish to think about a pummelo (like Chandler), or sweet acidless citrus like Palestine sweet limes or Mexican sweet lemons--quite interesting fruit that you may not be able to purchase easily. I like the acidless ones, though I agree with descriptions that the typical American palate may find them a little insipid. Sour/bitter oranges I find very easy to grow and are quite ornamental. HTH.

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.

I got this cutting at the beginning of August, I love it. Hoya Benguetensis - Whole plant Hoya Benguetensis - First new leaf I also got this imperalis cutting in a trade and I really really like it, it seems like a fast rooter/grower, got it a couple months ago at the most. I have another imperalis from the hawaii grower and it hasn't done a thing and got it as a small plant, got it in the spring. I have both in southern light. I frequently have to turn this one b/c of leaning toward the light.... shanna