Today's harvest--the work, waiting, and water are starting to pay off! I assume most of these are still smaller than normal, but expect that will change over time. Most actually tasted pretty similar, but Celeste and VdB had an edge over the others. Tena was juiciest. The LSU IC could have used another day or two, but I didn't want it to miss the party, and I'll leave the next ones longer (it is from a graft I did this spring, which has grown like mad all season and has several more figs starting to ripen). I didn't realize I had a couple of nearly ripe Black Missions until a few days ago, when I was doing an air layer and noticed them hidden under the leaves--a nice surprise.

The BT wasn't ripe so I didn't bother to taste it, but I can remember them well enough from the past and the other figs were somewhat better--sweeter, and more dense. I included it for size comparison, and had to use an unripe one because all the ripe ones were either sour and disgusting, or being devoured by fig beetles (aka green June beetles) and even more disgusting (see photo). So, sadly, the BT has been sentenced to death--it will be shredded into mulch as soon as I have time to carry out its execution. It only gives about one day's harvest each year before the little sour beetles show up and start ruining the fruit, and then a few days later the big green guys show up to finish the job--so it's not worth the space or water. It will make room for an avocado, and soon all the figs will be growing inside the big cage, which will be re-netted with material small enough to exclude even the green beetles. More on that project another day!

Very nice picture Ken, nice variety of figs what is the fig that says giant amber ?

one word WOW!

Beautiful pics Ken! How old are each of those trees that produced those figs?

Nice figs. Nice photo. Excellent lighting.

Great bounty Ken. The one thing that puzzles me is the Tena and Conadria. Mine are just the opposite, my Conadria is twice the size and more than the Tena.
"gene"

Those are some hateful beetles, Ken. Thank goodness I don't have them here. Do they only attack the IBT? I'm thinking it may serve as a decoy and keep your other figs safe. It may just be the preferred fig.

Thanks for sharing the pictures especially the dark types.

Giant Amber ia from USDA/UC Davis. It has never impressed when tasted at Davis.

Nice harvest Ken!  The figs look great.  None of those beetles have showed up yet in my yard and I hope they never do.

Yuks - those green beetles. Nice harvest & pictures. My Conadria is huge.

Thanks, Jon, for the link to Giant Amber. Ironically, a smaller one that I sent to Texas has produced much larger fruit--obviously a manifestation of the famous Lone Star Syndrome.

Thanks, everybody else, for your comments. It was quite gratifying to be able to compare several varieties at once, and fun to set them up for a photo.

Joe & Ruben if any of the big green beetles find your trees, show no mercy. Once a few show up they lay eggs in the soil around your trees, and the grubs will munch the roots for much of the year; then, when the monsoon hits, the adults emerge from the ground in large numbers and eat any fruit they can find. In addition to figs they love peaches, apples, whatever--and in a couple of years you'll have hundreds laying their eggs, rather than just a few. I kill as many as I can catch and it still hardly makes a dent in the population.

Martin, those dark figs were just for you!

Gene, the size difference may be partly because the Tena started bearing last year, but this is the first season the Conadria has really ripened anything (it came close last year). Hopefully it will have bigger figs next year. Do you notice any difference in the growth habit? With no pruning, my Tena has a single trunk with lots of branches, but the Conadria is more-or-less a cluster of suckers with no main trunk.

The Celeste, Tena, Conadria, and VdB are cuttings from UCD (2010) and are in-ground. Giant Amber is also UCD 2010, but is in a pot because I'm not going to keep it. LSU Improved Celeste is a graft from this spring (thanks JD!). Improved Brown Turkey and Black Mission are about 12-15 years old, in-ground, from a local nursery. BM was cold damaged and has very few figs this year.