Thanks for the update James!!!

James, I see your current goal is to have all the 2016 trees done by winter.  I'm guessing a lot of those trees will not be able to ship in winter, though.  So, given that, a lot of 2016 trees may become early 2017 shipments.  Do you foresee this causing a few month delay on the 2017 trees?

At this point I'm fairly sure my 2016 trees won't have any reason to ship until next year, given the weather.  I'm probably not the only one.  But those trees could start to be a burden as they get larger.  Might they be used in another cycle, since they will be just sitting there for months?

Thanks so much for the update James! I could imagine the work you do each day,so thanks for taking out of your busy schedule to keep us updated!

so for us Arizona peeps, since we really don't have a real winter here, will you be shipping plants to us when they're ready in the winter? Around what month you think? December or January?

Sounds like your hands are full!!

James, you are fantastic. Thanks for all your hard work. I'm like Frank and am in no hurry.  I appreciate what you are doing for us very much!

Thanks for the update!

Thank you for the update

*UPDATE*

I'm currently in the process of building 9 new tunnel greenhouses to cover the newer portion of my fig orchard that I added this year.  The new tunnels are needed to extend the growing season and produce enough cuttings and air-layers to fill the 2017 fig orders.

The new tunnels will combine to reach almost 1,000 feet in total length and will be covered by over 1/3 of a mile of greenhouse plastic (double layered for insulation), which will be removed for seasonal storage in the spring.  The pics below show the 5' long 3/4" EMT metal conduit that we hammered into the ground to serve as footers for 20' long 1.5" diameter schedule 40 PVC pipes that will form the ribs of the tunnel.  The PVC pipes are due to arrive tomorrow, and should go up fast.  I set up one pipe as a rib in the first pic to show you what they'll look like  :)

Not all of the orchard has been planted yet, and a few of the empty planting locations that we had marked earlier will need to be moved slightly to get them inside the tunnels, as you can see in the first picture.  (The original line of planting locations had quite a bend in it, and when I made the tunnel line somewhat straight, it resulted in some of the old empty planting locations ending up outside of the tunnel line.)

 
 

During this time we've also been pruning and potting up some nice air-layers that were set around 3-4 weeks ago.  Here are some pics of a few:

 
 
 
 

I've also been rooting lots of cuttings in humidity bins, and they're starting to push out nice roots:

 
 

Overall, fig propagation is proceeding pretty well right now.  Cuttings are rooting well, air-layers are setting well, and the new tunnels are on pace to be done perhaps a couple of weeks before first frost.  We should then be able to continue growing trees at a good rate as it gets cold, and will have ample space for holding as many additional trees over the winter as we need. 

As the trees for your individual orders become ready, I'll email you to let you know and to give you the choice of having your trees shipped at that time (late fall or winter, depending on the order) or waiting until the weather becomes warmer/safer in the early spring.  As of right now it looks like I'll be able to finish the trees for about 1/3 of the 2016 orders by sometime in November and will have the rest ready by early spring.  I'm also cautiously optimistic that we'll be on-time for the 2017 orders thanks to all the extra greenhouse space.

Hey James, thanks so much for the update! Looks like you have a master plan! Good Luck to you and thanks again for all your hard work! : )

Thank you for the update. Great looking air layer!

James,
Keep up the great work and kudos for sticking to your vision. I am sure there were times when you wished you just grew one third the cuttings and just sold them on eBay for three times the price.

James, in those pictures, what do you use or recommend for ground cover?

Here are some pics from yesterday:

 
 
 
 

I've received a lot of pm's and emails lately, and have fallen behind on responding to them all because I've been putting so much time into the hands-on work of growing, rooting, air-layering, watering, building, etc.  If I were to take the time to respond to all the pm's and emails, none of these tunnels would be going up and a lot of other important work wouldn't get done, either.  I don't have enough time to do both the hands-on work and the emailing/pm'ing, especially since I'm racing against impending cold weather, so I had to make the decision to focus on the hands-on work rather than emails/pm's.  I will respond to all of them, but the hands-on work has to take precedence right now, so please don't feel stressed or ignored if it takes me up to a week or more to get back to you during this time.   

Nice pictures of all you are doing.  Keep up the good work.  For what its worth, you made the only decision a farmer can make, you focus on the crop when it needs your time.

Those greenhouses look awesome, I have to convince my father in law to let me build them.  

James, everything looks awesome!  keep up great work!  Thanks so much for the updates.  

Great job James. The hoophouses look great. Keep up the great work. I'm sure most people will opt for spring delivery so things don't get hurt or having to keep young plants growing indoors.

Keep up the great work dude.

Impressive!  Hoop houses look great, as do those air layers!  

Ditto to all the good comments above once again.

There is so much information on this thread oh my God! This is great.

WOW James! You got it going on! Good Luck !