can you mid west fig growers give me a list  of your best figs  that would perform well  for fresh market ?
 
  we are starting a fruit  farm I guess it would be called ,to be sold  at farmer markets ..
 My hubby and I grew up in  the  Central Valley and Mojave dessert and he went to college for Ag business in Fresno where he mostly work doing field trail for the small farm farm advisor who specialized in niche markets..   anyway he gradated summer of 1981( puled bank loans and auctioning farms)  and thus never got to actually work in agriculture except his very first job and it didn't pay a dime.. he was irrigation foreman of 1100 acres of  fruit trees in Bakersfield CA. 
 anyway we are sick to death of store bought fruit and decided if we wanted
 "live our dream"  after he retires, early if possible .
 I have  small 7 acres and we are planning to do some intensive permanent crops and a little bit of truck crop type fruits and veggies but most of our fruit will be wild eatables of all sorts mostly fruiting  types  . we are still kind of in the planning stage and gathering seed and baby plant gathering  stages  of all kinds of things . when we lived in the city I have turned aprox 100 x 200  with a 3 bedroom house  into  the garden of eden with every kind of herb and 16+ fruit and nut  trees and 20 berry and grapes  vines and bushes = tons of eatable ground covers like strawberries and such .. and  I hope to try and do that  on this 7 acres.. though I am older now :P  and that may be a bit ambitious  <LOL>
     so far I have picked  one type of Texas ever-bearing and have lots of cuttings coming and want to go north next  for two more varieties .. but I find the number of cultivars extremely intimidating  to try and choose from ..
 Anyway we grew up on black missions and Black jack "types" and   have one growing  in our house now . and  am sick I can't  grow  those here outside <LOL>  OH WELL! ;(
  Anyway I would just love to know what you have  that would meet this need we have  to produce fresh market figs in  this area where they don't do so well..
 we have a "plan"  we are going to try  for a wall  which we will grow figs on one side and hopefully tender type  apricots and plums  on the other side of "the Walls". anyway in the far future we plan a "in ground structure" which we may use to house dormant  potted figs  of the more delicate  natures  so please  let me also know which figs  are doing best in your pots also..
 but my need for now is to understand  the ones you have planted in the ground.
Can you tell  how they are grown , like   in ground or potted ?
 how often they  have fruited ( % of years ) in your location
  Can  you tell  where you got them or from what tree even , and if that was a local place, or say same zone  etc .
  That meaning  can you note for me if Your best figs originate  from  the same zones and or same soil types and same general areas , so  like  piedmont or whatever  as you have now?

 and even if  say  you bought a  fig and  it didn't do so well but when you made a cutting of that imported tree and grew it or even gave it to a friend the cutting did way better than the imported parent. 
 any help would be greatly appreciated !  

Nan,
im in illinois south of chicago and been growing for about 6 years.
Hardy Chicago bought from nursery back east and Sals from back easy also do very well for me in 25 gallon pots and stored for our winters in garage, for me its work though as i bring them in and out of garage as weather dictates to get a jump start, nights get cold early in season and back in garage they go.
I have a dozen others that are small and im seeing if they will do as well as the 2 mentioned, 1 im sure will be ok is Violette De Bordeaux from what im seeing so far this season but time will tell. Hope this will get others to chime in for you.

thanks Dieseler
 well I  think it was Sal's and Verde I wanted to try in pots later when we do the pot figs . I thought Verte/verde? was breathtakingly gorgeous piece of fruit.  figs taste great!! YUM>>>> but as a whole aren't necessarily a pretty fruit   for marketing . some ways  to describe a fig are words like  smoochy, wrinkly , brown blobs or purple blobs .  words that are not necessarily appetizing .
    back to the subject.. that verte  was gorgeous and hopeful tastes as good as it looks and grows as good as it looks .... then I think it was one of the "Sal's" ( well I think it was sals. but I can't find a picture of sals now to make sure it was what I think I remember seeing)  that I thought  was prettiest fig before I saw Verte  with it's very dark red  raspberry flesh and bright white flesh. A very cleanand bright look I think  you could get non fig eaters to at least try that one...  but they may not try the smoochy brown and purple  blobs that look like some certain body parts...oops got off track again...
 so in Chicago you do not plant any in the ground hum?  have you tried  that one called Violetta? from Bavaria? has anyone put it in the ground in zone 5 or 6 ?
 
 maybe you can answer this .
  how come when I go to look at sites about figs everyone has a different zone range for the same named cultivars..
 like that  "hardy Chicago" but it is  in a pot right?
 because it doesn't look like anyone is actually planting it in the ground. so it can't be that hardy.. or are they . because the  only  zone rating I have seen on it is a 8.. that makes it very confusing as to if it is hardy for a 6 or not.
 the  types I have seen listed as zone 6 ( SOMETIMES)are Marseilles
 hardy Chicago,English and Eastern brown turkey and  Celeste  and Sal's  all but Sal's  appear to all be from  brown turkey or one of it's crosses  I  think.  is that possibly true?
  if so then is  my only options  is to put all brown turkey of some kind or cultivar  in the ground here and do everything else in pots ?

Hi nannanae,

You said you tried to find pictures of a certain fig?

Have you looked a Jon's website http://www.figs4fun.com/?

BTW, Jon would be the owner of this website also!

Talking about a Fig expert that would be him, but there are others (me excluded)Also.

Good luck, hope this might help Ya some.

 yes it was Jon's site where I saw a Sal's. that is a neeto bunch of info .

I believe you are in the Show Me State!

There is another Lady that is a member here "moshepherdess"

If it was me, I would email her (Look her up in the member pages!

Nice Lady

Here is another post for your reading.
http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=2959163&highlight=ivan

I second xgrndpounder suggestion, write her! I'm in StL county with one fig in a pot. Too cold for me to plant in the ground unless you wrap it up for the winter. Not able to make that commitment. Violetta sounded good for cold climates but I did my math and I get colder here than is it 10 C. (Jan. 2009 -12F here)

Have you looked at the UC Davis Repository cuttings list? Get your order in soon.  Then you can read more posts on how to start the cuttings.
http://www.ars.usda.gov/Main/site_main.htm?modecode=53-06-20-00

I ate my first fig today, I shared it with my mother.

Nan,
i know of no fig to go in ground in zone 5 with no protection , my grandmother had one for many years in groung in chicago and it was buried each year and its a lot of work just for 1 tree. I just grow in pots not in ground and if i did and had to wrap them its still a lot of work.
Last winter the coldest was 23 below zero then factor in the wind chill i dont think anything fig not protected would have survived here in my open yard last winter, we had nights of 10, 15 and 18 below zero it was a cold winter again with lots of wind ( windy city) . I do know buried they are ok here as i seen that firsthand in family when young. Wrapped i could not honestly answer that.
As for why nursery's list different zones for same type of fig i do not know why, but like i said i know of know fig for zone 5 for if it did not die it would surely die to ground level and be rather slow coming back in our zone, in a winter such as last it would have been a frozen stick and dead thru to root system. This is why i grow in pots less work and too cold unless buried too much work for me even with 1 tree.

Nan,

You should check out two postings by ingevald on this site. One 9-8-08 and one 10-31-08 that show a practical way to grow figs in your zone.

Scott

http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=2959163

http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=3072396
 
 

Nannanae's profile has been deleted? Come back!

Unless you are prepared to take some very drastic protective action you will not grow and maintain figs in z5.

I am in zone 5- 6a. Idaho.

I have in ground
Golden Atreano -protected
Brown Turkey(willisorchards) -protected
Mission (Willis Orchards)-protected
Ronde de Bordeaux- protected
Florea (when it gets big enough)
Lydhurst (when it gets big enough)
MVSB
Violette de Bordeaux
Sals Corleone

Still testing others. Most of my collectors (meaning $$$- pricey) are in containers. I will be selling fruits at Farmers market and local "mom & pop organic stores". Figs go for $4.95- $5.99 lb. good market price for sellers

Good luck

Since this thread from 3 years back I put Hardy Chicago inground May 2012 in yard.

Lol- I didn't even see how old this thread was. Crazy how the years flew by. Pretty tree Diesler