well after 21 years in the Chicagoland area where it seemed like nothing grew too well becaus of the corn herbicide I have successfully me the move to Zone 8 - Springhill, La. I now believe I can grow figs, grapes and Blueberries with no issues. Especially blueberries! Pine trees everywhere and no corn! Hurray! Anyway I am looking for a couple of fig varieties one I hear has a Strawberry type taste and one with a type cherry flavor. Anyone know of those. I brought some grapes down with me from IL they are doing great! Only one Blueberry and one Blackberry made it in the move. So I am currently looking for Tripple Crown Blackberry, thornless, a Southern High Bush Blue Berry. and A good sweet tasting fig. The ones I mentioned above if possible. Let me know what you have available.

Mike Hughes
902 Janice Dr.
Springhill, LA. 71075

Mike,

A side note, you probably cannot grow standard grapes, we have a mildew disease that affects grapes here in the humid south. But you should try muscadine grapes. They are a native southern grape. It is a little different, thicker skin, seeds, etc, but they are well worth growing. The best place to read up about them is at the Isons nursery website. They have great varieties.

blessings,
Gene

probably 3 of the Triple Crowns would be good.

Congratulations!  You might want to try to meet some of our other members from LA or AR.

Congrats!  You can do a whole lot more with fruit trees now!  :)

Did you move south just to be able to grow more figs? :)

No, I guess is a plus. In IL I had 30 Grape vines would be loaded and whe sprayed the corn there would go the grape crop. Winter would get the figs. Half the time the Blackberry vines would freeze. Plums would bloom and blossoms would freeze. But, to answer the question I came down here to preach for a church and will do IT and Broadcast Engineering work.

Mike

A grape-growing, tech-savvy preacher! You're quite something lol. And I hope you like your new growing conditions. There's a fig called Strawberry Verte, not sure if that's the one you meant. Louisiana State University had a fig breeding program that produced some great figs better suited to the hot and humid climate of the south. Look for LSU in front of the name like LSU Purple, LSU ORourke, LSU Tiger etc. And for SHB blueberries I highly recommend Sunshine Blue.

Welcome to Louisiana Mike, South La. that is. GeneDaniels is mostly right, but there are a  few true grapes that are immune to Pierce's disease. Here is a link to some of them, there are more. I have a friend that grows grapes and makes wine, some of the best I've ever tasted.

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/fruit-nut/files/2010/10/pd-grapes.pdf

I might be able to help you with some figs. I'll PM you later.
"gene"