Hi to all...
this is my first post as a new member, although I have spent a lot of time reading the forum. I really appreciate the information offered by those experienced in growing figs.

My dream and goal is to have edible landscaping around my house with gardens and fruit trees. More than just for the beauty of the plants, I need an economical source of very nutritional food as I am always working towards becoming more healthy on a budget. My health has benefited greatly as I have shifted into eating a lot more raw fruits and vegetables. But organic is pretty expensive, whereas growing the food on site is even healthier on top of costing so little to produce.

At this time, I am unsure how long I will be living in my current house, as I hope to move to a more permanent location soon. As a result, most of my plants are in large containers so I can transport them. If I end up staying here longer than planned, I may go ahead and plant in the ground.

So far, in addition to my new baby figs, I have several types of dark mulberry trees, quite a few goji bushes, a beautiful avocado tree (indoors in winter, and it probably will never produce), along with garden seeds for next year.

In contemplating ways to produce food on my land, I have been watching quite a few Youtube videos on organic gardening and permaculture. Fruit trees and bushes of all kinds seem practical, as they only need to be planted once, and from then on will continue to produce in abundance if cared for properly. It's absolutely amazing to find how much food can be produced yearly from even small lots of land in the city! I have seen videos demonstrating this.

Is anyone here growing their fig trees as part of edible landscaping as I am describing? I'd love to hear how you are accomplishing this, and what varieties are really easy to grow, quick to produce, and productive.

Berries, such as goji and mulberry are miniature powerhouses of nutrition. I know that figs are also tremendously healthy and nutritious, and cannot wait to taste my first homegrown ones!

Please feel free to share your own experiences and knowledge, i'd love to hear anything you want to share.

Welcome to the forum!  We do have an edible landscape which incorporates blackberries, blueberries, apples, pears, grapes, raspberries, rhubarb, and garden vegetables.  All my fig trees are in pots so far due to our very high water table.  Generally, I framed the yard with berries (on wires stretched between t-posts), and espaliered trees.  Larger free-standing trees followed on the inside of these, and I put everything else wherever I could find room.  Special considerations were; allowing for similarities in soil ph and drainage, high frost regions, and amount of sunlight.  You may also want to research special disease and pest pressures in your area.  I have had excellent luck so far with Petite Negri.  It is an early producer of excellent flavored dark figs. Hollier produced well, but cracked badly for me.  My other figs have not produced yet.  I'd be happy to answer any questions.   Best of luck to you.

Casey

Hi LJFiggy,
Welcome to the forum.
Goji berries ... I got tired of the bush I had and most of it is on the compost pile. I saw a video that there are strains of goji berries and some are just unproductive ... I guess I mis-lucked on that one. I saw at a nursery a more productive bush, but I could taste some berries on mine, and I really got deceived ... So no goji berries at my place.
Don't you try hayward kiwis - they take 10 years to fruit. I'm now trying kiwai Issai .
Raspberries are a misery at my place .
Blackberries get too bitter or watery here.
Plums are just unreliable and get meaty.
Strawberries perform well here.
Pear trees work great here.
Currants (red, yellow) and gooseberries (medium sized redish, big yellow) do great here.
Cabbages (they stay in the garden until you want to eat them), tomatoes, pumpkins for human feeding, cucumbers and peas perform great here.
Peach trees so far performed correctly.
My Apricot trees are too young for bearing Apricots.
But of course, the most productive trees for now are the fig trees. I have different strains to have a longer harvest season.
So far, the bests are Dalmatie, healthy Longue d'aout, and an unknown referred to as the ufti. I have other fig strains still under evaluation.
I'm now playing with potted fig trees ... I'm still debating on selling them when in full production age or keeping them ...
Good luck with your endeavors !

Hello, welcome to the forum. 
Fig trees are ideal for edible landscaping. They not only produce tasty fruit, they also have beautiful foliage. For these reasons I also like black mulberries and kiwi vines. This year I had my first harvest of golden kiwifruit from a vine that I planted 2 years ago. Some fruit trees have nice leaf colors in the fall, like pawpaws, persimmons or even grapes and blueberries (Sunshine blue). There are also fruit trees and shrubs that are evergreen, which is nice in winter (like Chilean guava, feijoa, or mube). Other fruit trees are really nice when flowering (feijoa and mube again, but also passiflora, cherries, medlar, amelanchier, apple, pear,...). In fact most fruit trees or berries have something extra besides the fruit, be it their leaves, flowers, growth habbit,... If you choose the right trees and berries, you not only can have fresh fruit most of the time, but also a beautiful garden. But it's important to find out what grows well in your climate and soil type. Good luck to you and keep us posted on your edible garden project!

Hi jdsfrance....thanks for the good wishes!
I appreciate all the information on what has worked for you in your location, and what hasn't.

Goji berries...in my previous location, which was clear across the country (3,000 miles) in a different growing zone, I planted bushes which I had started from seed. They grew tremendously, and were just starting to produce berries at the time when I had to move away. The goji plants which I have now are Big Lifeberry goji and newly acquired Sweet Lifeberry. These are supposed to produce well, and time will tell. As healthy as goji berries are, I hope they do. If not, i'll probably just plant from my own seeds again.

Definitely will avoid Hayward Kiwi! I would like to grow kiwi eventually and will look into the Issai Kiwi.

Raspberries, blackberries, and plums grew excellently at the place I moved from, but the climate was totally different than this location, so I don't know how they perform here. Maybe a different type of plum would work better for your place?

Definitely would also like to grow Peaches, Apricots, Pears, and maybe Currants. Along with the garden veggies you list.

I'm glad your fig trees are productive and doing well. I don't know if the Dalmatie or Longue d'aout are available here or not, but will make note of these. Unknown Ufti may be hard to come by here, but possibly under another name. I am always intrigued upon hearing about hard-to-find plants :) It will be interesting to find how what your evaluations go, and whatever you decide to do with your potted fig trees, I wish you all the best!...
LJ

We are on a quarter acre lot in Battle Ground, Washington (zone 8a).  It does take a lot of time to get the yard ready for intensive food production.  When I started out, there were Poplar trees in the backyard.  After they were cut down, I was still digging up roots for another year.  I am not sure what your soil is like. Bud-9 and G41 are great rootstocks for apples in the 9-12 foot range, but they do require staking for their entire lives.  M26 (12-15ft) dislikes heavy wet soil, so if you are looking for a slightly larger "semi-dwarf", G202  would be an excellent choice in that size range.  OHF X 333 makes a semi-dwarf pear at about 15 ft.  I have absolutely no experience with paw paws, but I read that they need shade when starting out.  Plums like soil that drains better than what I have here.  I tried growing plums on Marianna 2624. They got bacterial canker and died.  There are other plum trees growing in our area on a stronger rootstock.  Old gardening books sometimes advise to plant the "bones of the garden" first.  These are your heavy producing plants; trees, vines, and bushes.  This allows quicker production from plants you don't have to replace from year to year. Grafting is a good skill to acquire.  It allows you to grow varieties that are not commonly available, for far less money. You have a great goal.  It may take a while to get things the way you want them, but the results  will definitely be worth it. 

LJ,

Welcome to the forum. I have slowly been building up an edible landscape too. Besides figs I have blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, muscadines, native currants, pear and cherry. I've tried several others, but they were unproductive or unsuited to my zone (7b). And that brings me to my advice. Do lots of research and reading before trying anything. You need to look at both zone and other climatic factors to ensure they will thrive. For example, zone rating only deals with winter lows, not summer high temps. Here in Central Arkansas, some things will "fit" the zone based on winter lows, but will not take our miserable hot humid summers. 

Another bit of advice, read about "hugelkultur" before establishing permanent beds. It is the German art of using buried logs to make raised beds that hold moisture and naturally produce helpful fungi at the root zone. I have used this method in a limited way under some of my berry bush beds, and it seems to have increased my harvest and it clearly reduced watering needs in mid-summer.

May the Lord bless you with much fruit from your labors,
Gene

Welcome to the forum LJ and great starting topic! 

This was also my goal when I purchased my little piece of land 21 years ago. 

For me it was important to start with good soil and proper drainage.  
I found it an uphill battle to try and grow plants that are difficult for your area.  I found out the hard way how disease susceptible vinifera  grapes, apricots and apples are.  
I settled on easy for me to grow edibles;
pears, peaches, blueberries, labrusca grapes, plums, sweet nuts and of course figs.  I love the fact that figs are 99% pest free here.

Happy growing and eating!

Welcome to the forum. 

In addition to fig trees, I'm a big fan of Jujube trees. The jujube trees never need spraying and with the right varieties, you could keep on picking the vitamin C rich fruit for a several weeks towards the end of the summer. Persimmons are also up there on my favorite list, my varieties include Tamopan, Sajo, Hachiya , Honan Red , Chocolate and  Fuyu.
My trees are still small and hardly producing. Last year the Tamopan was loaded with fruit, but this year I had a tiny crop (less than a dozen).

Have you considered aronia or juneberries. Both are very nutritious and generally easy to grow once established.

May not be a concern for you but it may make it difficult to spray for pests if you are organic and have plants right up against the house.  

Welcome, LJFiggy!  You should have some good figs, assuming they were correctly labeled!  Violette de Bordeaux and Petite Negri were great this year.

Welcome- a lot of fruit loving people here :-)