In the halcyon days of the Great North Florida Food Forest, when our family was young and our food forest dreams were endless, we planted multiple varieties of figs.
And we actually managed to live in one location long enough to enjoy the fruit of our labors. Here are some pictures from back in the day:
The most delicious of these figs came from our Celeste tree, with their soft, refined flesh, dainty size, and delectable sweetness.
Brown Turkey and Celeste are most common figs in the Deep South.
Mississippi State University has a short article covering both of these varieties and how you can tell them apart.
Right now I have four varieties for sale at the store as bare root trees: Brown Turkey, Celeste, Texas Everbearing and LSU Purple. All are well-suited to this area, but I do have a particular fondness for Celeste figs.
The five easiest fruit trees to grow in this area are Japanese persimmons, sand pears, mulberries, chestnuts and figs.Â
Start your orchard or food forest with those trees and you’re much more likely to have success.
As a bonus, figs grow quickly and often fruit in their first or second year.
I’m not moving again any time soon, so I’m looking forward to getting lots of figs from our land. There are gigantic old trees around here that are just loaded with figs.
At St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Chickasaw there’s a great big fig behind the parish that bears an abundance of sweet figs. My guess is that it was planted by the nuns when there was still a convent there. I wish other churches would have the same forethought and plant fruit trees. Especially trees that love this area and won’t take much if any work to maintain.
Take five minutes and plant a fig today, then reap sweet results for decades. Especially if it’s a Celeste.
