Ficus, Common Fig, Edible Fig, Higo 'Celeste'

I got my fig tree at a yard sale several years ago as a small plant about 12", so I don't know what kind it is. It has been in a sunny l...Read Moreocation and can't help but get a lot of water during our rainy season/summer. Our occasional few below freezing nights don't seem tp bother it, has grown to about 4' tall but it looks more like a spralling bush then a tree, it's about 6' across with many loose branches. I fertalize with horse manure mix, what is collected from the stalls, several times a year. We get a couple dozen figs a year.
Bartow, FL

I wish I had a place to overwinter one of these trees. I live near Cape Cod and it just gets too cold here in the wintertime. I grew up...Read More eating figs, my mother being Greek, and figs being a large part of their food culture.
I just canned 7 jars (8 oz.) of dried fig jam, but it would be so nice to pick the fruit off of my own tree to make fresh fig jam.
If any of you lucky people who have fig trees and do canning would like my jam recipe, let me know, and I'll email it to you. I have recipes for both fresh and dried fig jam.

I grew up with a large celeste fig in my parent's yard. "Celeste" is the sweetest, most tender fig variety I have ever tasted. I've never...Read More seen the fruit for sale, I assume because it is so soft and tender that it won't ship well. I have one in my yard in New Orleans. It was one of two suckers I got off of a neighbor's tree in 2004. During the flooding of 2005, both the mother tree and the other sucker (I planted in my girlfriend's yard) died, but somehow mine survived. That tree has done great, and makes loads of fruit annually. I now live in zone 4, in the mountains of Colorado. Celeste figs and another favorite, Loquat, will not survive in this cold. When I build my greenhouse, I'll take a cutting or hopefully a rooted sucker off my tree in the south. I highly recommend this fig to anyone in a zone where it will grow.

I have an enormous one in the backyard in full sun. It's next to the vast neighboring sugarcane field, which probably gives off fertiliz...Read Moreer runoff, and right next to a deep, usually dry ditch, which probably helps with drainage. It has suffered a recurring fungal leaf problem over the last several years; so much so, in fact, that I simply assumed the leaves of all fig trees turned a yucky orangey brown in the summer and fell off after fruiting! After treating it with sulfur and copper octanoate, and pruning it heavily over the last few years in order to allow more light and airflow to the leaves (also an essential tactic with junipers in the Southeast) it now seems much healthier. (Our record drought + heatwave, spanning mid-April to mid-June of this year, surely also helped this tree to recover and made it feel like it was back home in the Middle East.) The wood is very easy to cut, possibly the softest wood I've encountered. The figs, even when the tree was sick, melt in one's mouth. The trick is to pick them right after they start to "droop" on the branch; they are held up in the air on the branch while ripening.
My next-door neighbor recently told me that he planted this tree for this house's ex-residents about 20 years ago, and told me it is indeed a 'Celeste.'

When I purchased this plant, I knew NOTHING about figs. I got it b/c I liked the foliage and b/c I thought it would make a nice shrub. ...Read MoreI never dreamed it would become a tree--luckily, I planted in a place where it had the space. Otherwise, I would have had to transplant a long time ago. Birds and squirrels have finally discovered my tree, so they hardly ever leave me any fruit.

UPDATE March 2014. We severely pruned our tree one month ago. It had gotten so tall I could no longer harvest fruit without using a ladder. We have pruned like this once before and were pleased with results. I have posted pic of recently pruned tree.

I have two Celeste's in pots on my south-facing front porch in Central Ohio. This is their third summer, and they are about 3' tall and ...Read Morearound. (The pots are small square plastic tubs, about 18")

I bring them into an interior but unheated stairwell in the fall, once they've dropped their leaves, and water them two or three times during the winter. I wait until nights are above freezing to bring them out again, but the leaves start unfurling in mid- to late-March -- they're ready to get started! This year, I had a ton of fruit already forming on the trees when I brought them out, but we had several bitterly cold days when I brought them inside the house, and they dropped all the brebas.

Last summer I harvested about 30 figs from the two trees, this year it looks like I'll have at least 50. Last spring I sprinkled rabbit manure on top of the pots, but otherwise I have not given them any extra fertilizer. In the height of summer I water once or twice a week.

Really love these plants. Am moving to a new home, still with a south facing porch, and will repot them in larger containers after they're done producing figs. Have to figure out how to overwinter them, and find some place that stays above freezing, but below 45.

This is only this plants first year and it is doubling! The thing is grownig like crazy filling in the tropical look and already giving ...Read Moreus two figs. Wonderful fig - now to get somemore!

My small shrub bore fruit the first year I planted it! The first crop is borne in spring on last season's growth and is called the "bre...Read Moreba" crop. Second crop is borne in fall on the new growth and is the main crop.

The Celeste fig's fruit is small to medium with light violet to violet brown skin. The flesh is reddish amber and very sweet (another name for Celeste is brown sugar fig)! Its great dried!

The tree has a tightly closed eye, protecting it from the dried fruit beetle a serious pest in the Southeast. It usually is small but very productive and hardy.

Like all figs remember...the more organic matter in the soil--the better! Mix manure or compost into planting site and then after planting mulch with compost or manure. I actually used composted pea vines for a mulch for mine. I feed mine with slow release 10-10-10. Figs prefer cool, wet winters and hot, dry summers so they are pretty drought tolerant in summer.

We have two in our backyard and they produce enormous amounts of fruit like clockwork every July for about 3 weeks. Are subject to white...Read Moreflies and other insects -- just can't seem to keep them away -- but as long as you stick to the fruit higher up, they don't seem to bother you (leave them the low fruit). You may have to fight the birds for the higher fruit!