Today marks 4 months and 1 day of fresh home orchard figs here in zone 6b, northern West Virginia, elevation 1,000 feet / 305 meters.
Picked and ate over a dozen figs today from trees that lost their leaves nearly 3 weeks ago. Half were very good: 3 Battaglia Green and 3 Brooklyn White, pics attached. Not at full sweetness but citrus sweet, or field strawberry sweet, with a citric edge, more like a quality breba fig, though somewhat less juicy.
Most of the other figs today were Mt Etnas, also a couple Almas, and Janice Kadota but these had little or no sweetness. They defined bland, mainly.
Looks like I might be able to continue picking a few more figs over the next couple weeks. However, the flavor dropped way off for the most part a few days after the leaf drop (due to two hard frosts). A few figs of a wide variety remained flavorful (sweet) for a week or so, slowly finishing ripening. Since then, mainly only Brooklyn White and the "Adriatic" types have retained good sweet flavor, along with the occasional Mt Etna.
Single cultivars with the longest spans of ripening fruit this year include:
Picked and ate over a dozen figs today from trees that lost their leaves nearly 3 weeks ago. Half were very good: 3 Battaglia Green and 3 Brooklyn White, pics attached. Not at full sweetness but citrus sweet, or field strawberry sweet, with a citric edge, more like a quality breba fig, though somewhat less juicy.
Most of the other figs today were Mt Etnas, also a couple Almas, and Janice Kadota but these had little or no sweetness. They defined bland, mainly.
Looks like I might be able to continue picking a few more figs over the next couple weeks. However, the flavor dropped way off for the most part a few days after the leaf drop (due to two hard frosts). A few figs of a wide variety remained flavorful (sweet) for a week or so, slowly finishing ripening. Since then, mainly only Brooklyn White and the "Adriatic" types have retained good sweet flavor, along with the occasional Mt Etna.
Single cultivars with the longest spans of ripening fruit this year include:
- Late Bordeauxs: July 10 to ~October 25 (3.5 months)
- Brooklyn White: July 23 to ongoing (3.5 months)
- Palermo Red (Aldo): July 21 to ~October 25 (3 months) (minimally productive)
- Improved Celeste: August 3 to ~October 25 (2.8 months)
- Ronde de Bordeaux: August 4 to ~October 25 (2.8 months) (apart from a few very early figs due to an early start inside)
- Mt Etnas: August 18 to ~Nov 1 (2.5 months)
Comment