Hello! My name is Yuri, I'm from Ukraine. As most of you may have heard, it's a cold country, but we do have some figs growing here, even the local varieties. Fresh figs are my favorite fruit.

Here where I live, in Kherson, figs grow as a bush, reaching up to 5 meters, until they are killed by a hard winter, and breba crop can be successful only with protection. Here are some examples of how figs grow here, sorry for no leafs on:

I currently have 4 varieties, which are, I believe, Brunswick, Violette du Bordeaux (it's called Crimean Black here), one unknown variety, and one local variety, called Novokakhovsky (I highly suspect it to be similar to some foreign fig ).

Your board is nice and useful, I enjoy it as much as I can.

Yuri
Thanks for sharing the photos and information. I hope you enjoy the fresh fruits.
I have one question about the missing leaves at this time of the year. Are the pictures old or the plants have not leafed out yet. I am in a very cold area but the plants have leaves and even tiny figs on some plants.

YURI: Hello, thanks for posting the pictures. Yuri, what is the coldest it gets in Kherson. Do the local figs ripen before frost?

Yuri, how close is Kherson to Mykolaive, Ukraine?

Привет Юрий   It is good to hear from a fig lover in the Ukraine.
  Good photos. Later, send photos of leafed out trees and figs.
Keep us informed.   Пока !!

Thanks everyone, those pics were taken in mid-march, so they are a bit old. These are not my plants, mine are much smaller due to the fact they were damaged this winter and now regrowing.

Here's my biggest fig, Novokakhovsky (do you recognize it as some known variety?), in May. I don't live there permanently, so please don't mind the mess in the background.

The local figs  ripen in late July-August (if it's breba) and main crop comes in early to mid-September. The first light frost usually hits around early to mid-November, the coldest nights in winter can dip down to 5 F - 0 F, but this winter was particularly hard, and the temps dropped to -11F, which damaged pretty much everything in my garden, like grapes and peaches, not only figs. Usual fig satellite plants here are pomegranates and persimmons, they have sustained damage this year too.

Robert, Kherson is rather close to Mykolaiv, being 30 miles away to the south-east.

Fred, that's some nice Russian! 

Robertharper
I have not see any fig tree growing outside in Ottawa which is zone 5a north. It will take some good amount of labour and material to protect fig trees outside. Even unheated garage cannot help fig trees to survive with just dropping a few sheets over it.
I tried storing a few in the unheated garage surrounded by the insulating bubble sheet (silver shiny colour) and filling the space with maple leaves. One (3-years old died). The Portuguese purple has not green-budded yet (probably gone).
I store my fig plants in a cold cellar in the basement (so 7-gallon is/shall be the biggest pot size for me).

Yury:Looking at leaves you got a Brunswick.
It has very ornamental leaves.

Herman,

Thanks for id, although I believed it to be different from what I considered the actual Brunswick:

Here are the other varieties:

VDB

Unknown (any id's would be greatly appreciated)

Novokakhovsky

Regards,

Yuri

Welcome Yuri!

I have many friends from Ukraine.  Thank you for sharing, and I hope we will continue to hear about your progress.

Very best wishes.

John
North Georgia Piedmont
Zone 7b

Hi Yuri,
thanks for sharing pictures.
I noticed your Novokakhovsky leaf , i looks similar to my Ronde de Bordeaux.

John,

thanks a lot for your kind words! Greetings to your Ukrainian friends from the land of watermelons :)

Martin,

for sure it looks similar, but your fig has 5 lobes, while mine has 5 bigger+2 small lobes. I haven't seen such feature on any fig variety yet.

Yuri,

Welcome to the forum. Those are some nice pics, Hope you keep them coming.

I've met some great people from the Ukraine here in Detroit, Michigan.

Yuri your right.
Mine had 5 lobes its very young inmature less than 1 season old at the time here in this picture it started to devolp the 7 lobes before it went into dormancy. No probably not the same just somewhat similar.

Here is another of mine im trying to learn a little about that displays 7 lobes.

Yuri,
WooHoo (YeeHaa)!
Very good news that any F.carica can be grown
all the way up north to Ukraine.
My congrats.

Yuri that leaf looks very similar to the leaf of Dalmatie. This is not my plant

Nelson, those are some the largest figs I have ever seen.

Bob that Dalmatie is not mine but from a fellow in Switzerland it is inground.

Here is a link to the original post he made.

http://www.exoten-forum.de/vb/showthread.php/29273-Dalmatie-gre-der-Frchte

Thanks everyone for your greetings!

Martin, my fig is freshly planted, so it is first year for it, and I haven't seen 5 lobed leaves.

Nelson, indeed it does! I know that Dalmatia is one of the best figs in terms of size. Hope I'll grab one in autumn. Here's breba size in Russia:

WOW yuri thats huge hope my dalmatie has some figs next year, thanks for that pic.

I hope too!

The area it grown in is rather hot and dry in summer, and the figs are protected each winter. This guy says the older the bush, the better the figs. He bends it down for winter, so all non-flexible wood is cut down, usually after year 4. He says that best crops are from 4-th year. Looking at that pic, I believe him!

Yuri I got my Dalmatie from france this year its on its second season now hopefully in 2 more years I can see some of those monster dalmatie figs. Your plant that has similar leaves is it a white or dark fig? Has unique looking leaves thats for sure. 

Nelson, my Novokakhovsky (sorry for that word once again) is supposed to be dark variety, but I've only planted it this March, so no fruits here yet. Surely I'll post them as I have them.

Thanks Yuri, please post pics in the future when your plant has ripe figs.

Welcome aboard Yuri

Nice to see that some people are into fig growing in Україна.