Wow... so many fanatics!  (glad to know I'm not the only fig freak who got carried away with new trees and cuttings).  I guess this fig fever disease (ffd) can flare up after a long time in remission.  After many years with just a handful of trees (helping my dad), I got 7 new trees this spring (3 new cultivars), with 6 more on the way (3 add'l cultivars, and thinking about one more).  Maybe it has to do with ancestors, circles, and finitude and gorp like that, or maybe it's just giddiness over realizing that with containers I won't have to bury the trees every year.  Either way, I'm kinda glad to realize that 13 new trees means I've only got a mild case of ffd.  Gina, triple digits... wow!

To me, I do not question what I do. I question why others cannot understand the things that I do. As I have stated in the past. It is very nice to find a place where you can converse with others that do understand. Thank you all.   

I'm looking forward to trying different varieties develop as my little trees age. I only have 1 mature bt now but a plethora of varities of small trees just recently rooted. So for me it's the process of aging and development of flavor over time. I learned to enjoy " process" in my wine and beermaking and as it turns out, most things are better with age. Looking forward to some great figs!!

Good morning, Noss! They help keep the pots from getting above ambient temp. The mulch on top keeps the temp in the pot about 14-20 degrees cooler than without it. I checked on 85-90-degree days and the pots were already hitting 110+ (the ones not covered on the sides or top) .

When we retired and moved to Lake Havasu nearly three years ago, I planted 14 fig trees (mostly from cuttings from a local tree) and four citrus.   My wife bought me a demolition hammer to dig the holes as our "soil" consisted mostly of rock, calche, and a little sand.  

Two years at Havasu and we had to leave.  110+ temps day after day after day, plus the high water and electriciy bills dictated that we move on.  The trees thrived, but the fruit was literally baking on the trees.

We've been in the Verde Valley for less than a year now.  Cut down four huge mullberry trees, a 50 ft pine tree, and lots of pyracantha and shrubs...all to make room for the fig garden, a couple of cherry trees, and a vegetable plot. 

I have eight trees in the ground now, and another fourteen rooted cuttings waiting to plant.  Most will go into an 86 foot long fig "hedge" across the south side of our lot.  Now we are in a heavy clay soil.   Very different soil conditions (from what we had at Havasu) dictate different planting methods and care.

The neighbors think I'm nuts (all the established landscaping is torn out and I have yet to backfill most the trenching for the water lines, fence posts, and other excavations). 

My wife KNOW'S I'm nuts, as I am up at dawn every morning to check on and mist each tree and cutting and check on it's progress.

As I look around my utterly destroyed and only partially reconstructed yard, like FMD,  sometimes I am a bit overwhelmed.  And I am begining to doubt my sanity as well but...it makes me happy, and it's not hurting anybody, so who cares?

I know the feeling and the look and it ain't my neighbor’s yard either!

AND as with Frank I think of David Byrne and his prophetic words.

"Same as it ever was, Same as it ever was, Same as it ever was, Same as it ever was,

 Same as it ever was, Same as it ever was, Same as it ever was, Same as it ever was,"

Yep were sane and all is normal. It's those other people that are strange. I think they are really Zombies. What else could explain their lack of passion for Figs.

Yep their crazy all right.

Excuse me I have to mist the figs every fifteen minutes all 800 of them! LOL

Noss,

Dave,

egads!

I mist mine by hand when they are uncovered and no roots yet, and even though I have 'triple digits', my triple digits are no where near 800, lol.

And I thought I had jumped the shark. ;)

Dave - when I was in college, one of my roommates famly had just moved to the Verde Valley. During spring break we would go explore the various historic sites, ruins, etc. Pretty country.  

It's not my fault I have 80 figs in 1 gallon pots from cuttings with likely more to come.  I used to get 1/3-5 to root and this year the first 2 batches rooted 100% and the rest rooted over 80%.  Like many of you I've given lots away and am selling some on ebay.

Noss you need to swing by here sometime soon just to check things out. If you want a Tiger fig I'll have one air layered for you later this summer. I plan on doing a few off my tree as it is growing like mad and have some very nice looking and plentiful figs on it. You and Mike ( not the tiger although he might be) need to come on over if you come this way for anything, or just come for a visit. The door is always open, well the back door is.

You people are nuts!!! now let me go count and see how many I really have.
"gene"

I have just started collecting figs.  Before this it was bananas, and in the north east that can be tricky.  I had about a dozen varieties but no way to keep them going over the winter.  I finally got some fruit to ripen this year, although it is very small.  I'm switching to figs due to the fact that they will require less work than the bananas.  I think I will cap myself at around 20 varieties, give or take about 20.  Unfortunately the uniqueness factor of certain plants, bananas and figs, often results in other people unknowingly encouraging you to get more plants.  If anyone is interested in encouraging my addiction, let me know!

LOL, You'll get plenty of encouragement here, just hang around and keep posting. You'll have 20 before you know it, that probably won't be enough for you, it certainly wasn't for me. Bananas are nice, but as you learned far more difficult in our part of the world, little return for the effort if you are looking for fruit to eat. Figs on the other hand, much more bang for the buck.

I really enjoy growing Bananas even though I am severely limited as to what I can grow here in my 8b Pensacola Fl. garden. After two and a half growing seasons I am thinking that I may not be able to maintain all of my banana mats. I currently have nine edible and three ornamental mats plus about a dozen waiting in pots to become mats. I have had one bunch mature and be eaten. I have lost five stalks to frost. Not a very good return on my labor. they area the mats occupy would be better served by growing figs or citrus.

predictably a popular thread as we are, ahem, all in this together. Sycosis, I call it. I rooted over three hundred cuttings my first year but sold them to a local nursery and used the money to buy a 2500 gallon rainwater tank the better to grow yet more figs with...it's better than collecting cats? I only have seven of those...

With three fig trees I feel more deprived than overwhelmed (hehe). The advantage is it's easy to dash outside and fling them into the back porch when snowflakes are in the air. I can hardly wait until they're bushier so I can grow new fig trees from branch segments to share with children in the neighbourhood! In February while the fig trees were still dozing in the cellar, I repotted them. Steroids must be in the rainwater, they are growing so fast now!
Only one cat … and five thousand red wigglers in the wormery that eat spent tea bags and apple cores to fuel the veggies and figs!

Noss,

I definitely qualify for the newbie and I figure I've had good success. Having said that I think that my success is directly related to two things. The first being total neglect.

When I received my cuttings I prepped them by using a 10% bleach wash and then a thorough water rinse followed by a burial in 70/30 mix of Potting mix/perlite that was barely moist not wet. They were then placed in Chinese take out trays. These seal very well. I then, and here is where the neglect came in, stacked the trays about four deep and placed them on top of my hot water heater which is in a dark closet. I came back one month later and took them out and potted up what had rooted. What did not root I put back in for more neglect.

The second part is keeping them in my face. The potted ones are left on a sheet tray and are prominently displayed on my kitchen bar. My wife isn't thrilled with this part.

I see them twenty times a day and just keep up with them. If they look like they need a little water I give it. But mostly I just look at them a lot. When the first really dark green leaves appear they go outside (not by design but the temps were low 60's to mid 80's) on a table under a very large grapefruit tree. Here they get checked a minimum of four times a day.

All this is probably just luck on my part but that is what has worked this year which is my first year rooting figs.