I live on the TN/KY border on the line of zone 7a/6b. I have about 10 Chicago Hardy Figs and 3 Celeste and 2 Brown Turkey. All of them are 5 years old and are incredibly healthy in summer and fall. They are all about 5 feet tall and about 4-5 feet wide. But here is the thing. My Chicago Hardy Figs behave perfectly. THey sometimes produce a few breba figs, but around mid to late August all the small green figs suddenly swell up, then ripen into incredible little balls of jelly! Absolutely wonderful stuff (I had no prior experience with figs) but my Celeste and Brown Turkey both refuse to ripen. The plants look great and are covered in small green figs, but even years like last year where the first frost wasnt until mid November, there still was almost no ripe fruit. Occassionally one will turn purple, but when you cut it open it is dry inside, not very sweet, and nothing like what a fig should taste like.
I don't know what to do. Most years they don't die back in the winter. In fact, last year was their 3rd straight year without winter die back (and 5th year since planted), so the plants should be quite mature. I usually put 2 hand fulls of 15-15-15 granulated fertilize on in the spring, but I do that on my Hardy Chicago too. In short, I'm open to any ideas about why they won't ripen fruit or what I might could try. Things like putting olive oil in the figs seems impractical considering the large number and the fact that they usually don't even get large enough to form holes. Last but not least, I should add that it is possible all 5 of the figs that don't ripen fruit could possibly be the same variety and not the 2 mentioned. I say that because they look so similar to each other and because the source was suspect. Either way, though, I've got several plants that don't ripen figs ever, and several that always do. What gives?