For short seasons I recommend Brandon unk. Florea, LSU tiger, Marseilles, negretta,

Ben, I hope you don't mind me asking but have you (or anyone else) had and experience with Corky's Honey Delight? I was at OSH yesterday picking up a few more pots and saw that they had two decent sized fig trees of that variety from Monrovia and they were willing to give me 25% off since they are trying to clear stock, I would be able to get it for $36.25. I didn't want to impulse buy so I went home and tried to find some information out about it but I haven't seen much detail on them. I mostly want to make sure it will grow/produce in our area and if its a fig worth having/putting time and energy into growing. Here is a picture of the tree, it had one over ripe fig that had started to wither and one small fig just set.

This is what Monrovia says: http://www.monrovia.com/plant-catalog/plants/3459/corkys-honey-delight-fig/ 

Its suppose to be be a somewhat early fig, there are some reports that it has a fruit dropping problem in the first couple of years. I dont have it but Peters honey should be a better substitute, Which i do have. HIstory http://figs4fun.com/Info/Info_Uncle_Corkys.html

Thank you Ben! I suspected it wasn't the best as it doesn't seem like many people grow it/give it rave reviews. I think I will skip it in favor of the Peters Honey. You mention Brandon unk. Florea, LSU tiger, Marseilles, negretta being good options for short seasons, any recommendations on where I might find them? I know now is not the time where most places have them available but I'd love to know for the future.

Shawn, the Monrovia Fig is $54.99 it happened to be set in the shrub area and the shrubs at OSH are 25% off right now. On a lark I asked if the fig would be considered a shrub and while it didn't ring up that way two of the workers/managers said they would give it to me anyways. I also have a $5 off coupon that I could use for it which is how I got down to $36.25. I am tempted by its size as all the other figs I've seen are only a foot or so high and the taller of the two was at least 3.5-4 feet high and I know it can at least carry some figs to maturity as it had an overripe on still clinging to it and has one very small fig just starting to grow, is it a late main season fig or a breba? This is my first endeavor into growing figs and I am having trouble finding timelines for approximately when figs set breba vs main crop figs. The one source I saw said that brebas start forming in the winter so that would make that last little fig a main crop one right?

FYI for anyone able to get to the Portland area this weekend One Green World is having a fig event and they have some good deals on some popular varieties. Sale goes through tomorrow I believe. I may have gone crazy and come home with 13 varieties...

Lucky...

No problem! I ended up with Neverella, Atreano, Lattarulla, Peter's Honey, Stella, Olympian Hardy, Negronne, Panache, LSU Purple, Desert King,Black Spanish, Chicago Hardy and Celeste. They weren't able to give me personal experience growing them/what ones would do well for me but with the cost I figured I could trial them for myself and see what works. I assume the Panache will be the hardest to get fruit on here but I love the flavor of them so much I had to try. They will all be in pots forever/until we move and see if there is an in ground area they would be able to go at a new house.

I keep my 19 Citrus under lights and would shutter at the thought of having to do the figs too. I am hoping they will do just fine in the dark corner of the garage with the Brugmansia.

I've never had any luck with Panache, LSU Purple ripening for me. Even with a greenhouse.

Ben, that's disappointing. I'll give it a go and see how it turns out but won't get my hopes too high.

all the other varieties should be good though. I have a Violletta and Brandon unk. in small pots i can ship you. Or you can get it off of my Ebay your choice. Brandon is productive and reliable. Ripens 2 crops here in Seattle. It's one I discovered from a mother tree here in Seattle. It's one of the earliest brebas and main crops. Brebas ripen in July. and Main at the end of August,

Black Spanish brebas look big and yummy but are low quality figs. And can split easily.

I have reviews on them on my youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv5dMfKiOFo1aqEK7OuoujA

Ben I would love to order trees from you, thank you so much for offering! I read your blog post about the Brandon and it (and so many others of the varieties you grow) looks worth trying for sure. Just let me know how to go about it and I will.

shoot me and email binbinnine@yahoo.com

If you guys are worried about ripening the figs properly with such a short summer, try looking for figs that don't require as much heat to ripen instead of breba crop figs. There's some varieties that are known to need lots of heat to produce good figs, Panache is one of them which is why you probably couldn't get any figs binbin :( But there are some varieties that are known to ripen without needing a lot of heat. I've read so many fig descriptions that I can't remember which ones exactly. Best thing to do is just read each fig description from all the reputable nurseries selling figs. Some nurseries will mention heat requirements if it's a noticeably good trait for the fig. Good luck!

Negronne and VdB are very similar if not the same fig type. Some say VdB has smaller leaves but that's the only difference if at all.

Fwiw VDB/Negronne is one of the best tasting figs there is. And I've sampled most of the top rated ones including I258, Preto etc. Don't let the fact that it is easy to find confuse you. It is an absolutely top tier fig which also does well in the PNW.

Shawn I have not potted up my figs yet, A few of mine have nearly ripe figs on them and I didn't want to risk re-potting if it means they will drop. Its also close to the end of the season so I am not sure if potting up is necessary right now or if I should wait until they go dormant. Any seasoned fig growers have an opinion? they are in 1 gallon pots and are between 1-3.5 feet tall most with single trunks and a few with double.

I thought that VDB and Negronne was the same fig, are they not? I read it somewhere but I can not think of what site it was now.

I think that Herman2 mentioned that figs need 70F to ripen properly, If daytime is 80F and night = 60F, average is 70F, In PNW, only July/August/ 0.5 September reach 70F, I have couple potted negronne/VDB, All have wonderful small crop of brebas at July, Main crops are huge and ripening now, They look good but taste bad and unreliable, In low heat, Most figs ripening now are blanded. I removed all figs now to save up tree energy for next year.

I learned a lesson that I had wasted my time for other varieties unless that I have a greenhouse, I planted couple early varieties in ground, Florea (July(Breba)/Aug(main)), LSU tiger (E-Sept) , Desert king(L-July), Granthams Royal ( E-Aug).

Negronne ripened 2 main crop figs for me this year in Seattle. They were among the best figs I ever tasted. But the others are not ripening/ripening too slowly.

You must have a very good micro-climate. DK typically only ripens in August for me. I even got brebas in Sept and have some left over brebas now in October.

Nordland appears to be a must-have variety in the PNW. It ripened a big breba crop and now is ripening the main crop. It is very tasty. I would rank it as good/better than DK.

Jack, I would say that was true a few years ago but it seems at least here in the Portland area we have had hotter and hotter summers. Were still hitting over 70 in October, and July, August and September were a nightmare, so many days over 100 and most of the summer was 80-90's daily. I know that not all of them will be successful but I am glad to hear that the Negronne will do well.

My 10 galoon negroone/VDB ripined great with around 20 per tree first year. Will prune down and hope for more. But hotter and dryer over here in east washington. Hoping for 100 per tree next year with 20 gal pots. Gl, some of my figs i thined the figs to 4 or 5 per brach in to speed up the ripening process. Dont know if it worked but they did ripen..

Portland is MUCH hotter than Seattle. It gets atleast 30% more degree days every year.

Sammers, you will have great results with Negronne, also with varieties such as Peters Honey and Stella, both of which are somewhat unreliable for main crop in Seattle.

Can anyone tell me what happened to the Figs4Fun Forum?

I've read that negronne is slightly different from VdB, there's just a lot of confusion of them being similar because nurseries sold them interchangeably when one was introduced later to the US.

It happened with the Improved Celeste and LSU O'Rouke. When the O'Rouke was announced, nurseries changed the labels from Improved Celeste to O'Rouke because technically the Improved Celeste was a leaked fig variety of LSU, just never officially named or released. So both are actually different but you won't know if you get the correct variety unless you know the exact details of said variety. I feel like that's a similar situation with negronne and vdb.

Jack wo, many veterans say that overwatering makes the figs absorb all that extra water and turns the figs very bland. They're supposed to actually do better with alittle less water. Not saying you should starve them of water! Lol definitely give enough for the figs to develop but don't let them fill up on excess water or they actually dilute themselves. I think figs not being real fruit but actually millions of flowers is the reason why some figs do this

Thanks for everyone advice, I am located near coast's water area where summer is cooler than other area, This is 2nd years of growing negronne/VDB in 5G pot, I have 3 from different source, They has about 40+ figs with bland taste, I am pretty sure that negronne/VDB loves heat with great taste, I will graft it on my in ground mature tree next year for last test, I will graft couple varieties as well to see that how well they grow in our climate, I guess that it is better methods with less work/errors to Test and evaluation them in ground.

I really like Binbin's Brandon unknown and Ramv's Nordland, as well as LSU O'Rouke, hoping that I can get them someday.

I planted couple fig trees in ground last year, All of them cold killed to ground, They grow back to 7+ feet in ugly bush form, Only Chicago hardy is able to give me one ripen fig. very disappointed.

I planted couple tiny fig trees in ground 2 months ago, I will cover them up with plastic garbage cans, Sorry for the big one, Just too much work to winter protecting them.

Shawn, you have a greenhouse, you can taste some delicious negronne figs, This tree is slow growing with lots of main figs.

There is a convenient way to estimate the heat units at pretty much any location.

Go to wunderground.com and navigate to your favorite location. Click on history , then on custom.

Choose a date range spanning a year. Look at Growing Degree Days.

This is a perfect proxy for how many heat units your place receives. From this, you can learn a lot of things: including that Portland gets around 30% or more heat than Seattle.

And Seattle gets much more heat than Vancouver, BC.

Places on the coast (like Grays Harbor) get very little heat. There it is best to stick to breba only figs. I would say thats a good idea even in Seattle!

Shawn, lucky you that you can enjoy some good figs.

Ramv, great website, It is very helpful to find heat unit in difference area, Also I find that Temperature chart for September is very helpful to see it falling below 70F.

Anyway, Ground cool down slower, Older in ground fig trees are different than potted fig trees, I have couple figs ripening recently, Chicago hardy figs has very rich and intense berry taste, very good, "Desert king varieties" has few main figs ripened as well with very good taste.

Boy what id give for a nice fresh fig!!!!!

For your info, Corky's Honey Fig from Monrovia will ripen well in cool summer climates. I get summers mostly about 65 to 73F. I rarely get 80s. That fig happens to be really good. For that reason, I bought and planted 4 of them. My mom gets even cooler weather than me in foggy Sunset district of San Francisco, and it ripens for her too. Most figs will not ripen for me, so if anyone knows any more figs, besides Desert King and Osborne Prolific, let me know. I grew many varieties from cutting from CFRG scion exchange, and a majority stayed hard, and never ripened. Tiresome experiment. Would have been easier if someone just told me what works for low heat climates.

Jon Lee, where in SF are you at and which varieties have you tried that worked for you?