Hi All,

I am having fig problems which I hope you can give advise.  Being new to the entire process everyday is a learning experience.  I have 2 brown turkeys that I overwintered in my garage.  While these guys were resting, I spent the winter collecting cuttings of:
Chicago Hardy, Smith, Petite Nero, some local Italian thanks to Garlic Mike, Peter's honey, Desert King (thanks to Shirley).  All of these were looking healthy with leaves and roots.  With Friday's arrival of warm weather, and the larger Brown Turkeys opening leaves, I decided to move the smaller plants outside.  The idea was to bring them out in the sun and bring them inside at night.

Some of the little guys handled the move OK, but most started drooping and the leaves have blackened and are falling off.  It looks like new leaves are starting to bud in all cases.  My plan is to allow the old leaves to fall off which seems unavoidable and continue to bring the plants outside, allowing the new leaves to acclimate to outside.

Q#1:  Is this plan OK or should I take other measures?
Q#2:  What did I do wrong, too soon?  Should have done limited exposure?  1 hour each day?

I worked on these guys all winter with UV lights and heated containers, it would be a shame to lose them now.

Thanks for your advise,
Andrew

I would place them in a shady spot to begin with.  Slowly move them to more and more light.  The initial leaves were most likely sunburned and will fall off, but be replaced by new ones. Good luck.

Thanks for the sunburned diagnosis.  I thought that with temps in the low 70's there wouldn't be excessing sun and the issue was more with wind or temperature.  But after reading a couple other posts from people with similar issues, it looks like the sun is the issue.  The good news is I wasn't expecting figs this summer from the smaller plants and as long as they recover to the point where they can be garaged in October, all is happy in my world.

Have a great day!
Andrew

Hi aporto,
Did you already plant your tomatoes outside ? Do you grow them ? When do you put them outside normally ?
Here, before 15th of May, one better should keep them in the greenhouse. All unhardened plants should too.
So before 15 of May put them back under the lamps.
You just need one cold snap to set them back, so I wouldn't risk it .
Here today at 12AM, suddenly the temps went chilly. One such hour is enough to fry the leaves, especially when those leaves did sprout inside a house.

When I bring newly potted plants that I rooted indoors to my outdoor nursery, I like to build them a little tent. I string up a piece of twine between two posts and drape a piece of shade cloth over it like a pup tent. This shields them from both sun and wind. I introduce the plants to full exposure by gradually creeping the pots out of the ends of the tent, or just tucking one flap under the other so that it becomes a half tent. 

APORTO is bringing the plants in at night, so they should be fine with the current daytime temps. Tonight will probably dip below 32°F here in the Berkshires, but as long as I bring my plants in this evening they are safe to be out in the day. That's how I harden my plants off (including tomatoes) so they will be ready to go out permanently by May 15. Doing the shuffle is a pain, but this isn't a strange time to start hardening off plants. You just have to watch the weather closely and play it safe if any temp looks too low be it day or night.

If you have new buds sprouting you're best off leaving them in the sun.  Whatever they open in to is what they'll be acclimated to.  There's no point letting them open in the shade and then having to babysit them as they get used to the sun.

I am bringing larger plants into my garage and smaller plants into the house at dusk each day.  Looks like there is a frost warning for tonight so I will be sure they are all snug-as-a-bug.  The 3 smallest plants I bought in March have lost all previous leaves and are being replaced with new growth so I think those will be good.  My 2 biggest were garaged all winter and the new leaves budding don't seem to mind the sun, wind, and temperature.  I have 2 medium sized plants that were bought in December and grew over the winter.  They dropped 1/2 of their existing leaves, and the ones that remained turned very dark.  They are the 2 on the right in the second picture and I am keeping a close eye on them.  I think the damage has been done and continuing to expose them to outside during the day.  I plan to leave them out when the lows hit high 40's.

JDS, using tomatoes as examples did not help because I also brought a few tomato plants outside as well.  The leaves drained of color and turned translucent, but they seemed to adjust better than the figs.  I recently moved from a condominium and this is second year with figs and first year for garden (tomatoes, corn, peppers, egg plant, etc.).  The garden is going in a field behind the trees in the second picture.  I hand-cleared and shovel-tilled 900 square feet of very rocky soil.  I had no idea how much work it would be when I started.
hopefully the first year is the hardest!

Garlic Mike's Dark Italian is the second from the left and doing well with the move to outside.  The 3 white Italian's are still in house, waiting for better rooting before bringing outside.

A big thanks to all who helped with information.  It is amazing how much there is to learn and I look forward to the days when I can worry less about survival and play with all the cool topics like air-layering and self-pollination.  First, I just want one fig to taste.  At some point this summer, I will ask for advice on watering container plants.  Then how to prune at the end of the season.  But for now, I am focused on leaf-retention ;-)