so, i was counting figs on my tree yesterday with my 7 yr old son. we counted about 50 on VdB, 20 on Paradiso Gene, 2-3 on KB and 1 on White Greek. my son asked what i'm going to do with all those figs.. and i said i'm going to eat them since no one in our house eats figs. then he asked what i'm going to do with all the figs once the cuttings grow up to be  trees too.. i'm thinking.. hmm.. yeah.. if they all grow and turn into trees, that will be lot of figs to eat.

i have already given out cuttings and rooted cutting to families and friends. and gave some to cub scouts, and i will be giving more to boy scouts next year. but i still have more than i need. we have good size middle eastern families around my house, so maybe i'll give some to them and others in neighborhood.. as long as they don't bother me about how to grow the darn thing. i tend to keep to myself and like not having to talk to too many people around my neighborhood.

so far i have 4 trees, 5 different varieties in the cups, and 3 others coming from the members on the forum. i gave away few cuttings this year.. more than likely i'll do that next year.

i guess my point is.. what do you do with all those cuttings and trees? i'm sure there are some point where you think you just have too many.. i'm not selling trees or cuttings.. so there is no specific reason to keep collecting the cutting and keep increasing the size of my collection other than just out of curiousity to taste all the good figs out there.

i don't want to throw away trees.. but sooner or later, my family and friends will stop taking trees. kids at cub/boy scout will lose interest.. what do i do then?

pete

Hey Pete, welcome to my existential fig crisis.

"And you may ask yourself-Well...How did I get here?"

You could always just compost them like other woody cuttings.

Shouldn't every household have at least one fig?

operation fig ninja? in the dark of the night, drop into neighbor's back yard and plant fig tree...

pete

edit: bullet proof vest optional.

Put them at the end of your driveway with a sign that says "Fig Trees- $5" or whatever, and a coffee can that says "Cash, please be honest". You should get something for your troubles...
Or go talk to people at the local produce markets and nurseries and see if they would like to sell them on commission.

The cuttings can be given away or just disposed of. the figs can be eaten or put out front of the house on a cart like tomatoes the neighbors will be cleaning them up for you.. The little man could make good spending money selling figs at the end of the driveway...My son trys to sell everything out in front of our place  He even dug up a few hyacynths last month shoved them in pots and put them out with a sign $1.00 each. He sold one before his mother found out her flowers were gone....Funny times...

my kids did ask me if they can sell the fig trees and figs. i don't mind giving the fruits to my kids to sell.. only problem is there is always risk associated with selling food items. sooner or later someone will end up getting sick and will possibly want to start something.

as far as selling the trees, i don't have nursery license. i guess once my trees are at a point where i just have to get rid of them, i can get nursery license and post them on ebay, or sell it at the drive way. but i really don't like mixing pleasure with business. i like growing figs, eating figs, and looking at the figs.. but not sure about selling them. there are ton of good nurseries and forum members who can provide better cuttings and trees than me.

pete

You can give them away/sell on craigslist. 

We make jam with whatever we can't eat in time fresh. I'm really looking forward to the day I have enough that I can make jam and have enough left over to swap for pizzas with the shop down the street. 

I will likely have many extra rooted cuttings this year. After planting a few hedges along the edges of the property, I'll give some away to other gardener friends who know I am doing this - they are waiting... After that, there are a couple organic farms locally, with 'stands'. If they are interested, I'll give them to these places to either plant or sell or give away. When I started lots of blueberries a few years ago, I had no trouble getting rid of the extras.

Another option is to put the plants in one gallon pots on the edge of the driveway and sell them. We have lots of walkers in my area.

As to extra figs, my plan is to dehydrate most of them. I love dry fruits. I might also try to make some sugarless preserves slowly cooked down after partial drying in the dehydrator.

gina,

your idea of dried fig sounds great. this way, i can enjoy the fig off season. i'll have to look into those dehydrating things.

pete

I've purchased some dry mission figs from Trader Joe's. They are very good. My plan was to slice them into thick rounds like in photo below, not dry them whole.

The best dehydrator I've tried is Excalibur brand. They are pricey - about $250. If you aren't going to dry lots of things, buying one might not be worth it. If you are careful, and have a very low setting, you can do some drying in your oven. Or rig up a box with an incandescent bulb, small fan, and racks...

Here is a thread from last year on dehydrating figs. I personally prefer to dry fruits at lower temperatures for much longer periods of time, but everyone does things differently. I rarely dry anything over 110*F - I don't like the taste of 'cooked' that I got when I tried higher temps. I absolutely love my dehydrator. :) 

http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/Ever-use-dehydrator-for-fig-drying-5459117

have you tried sun drying or oven drying the fig?

pete

Sun drying if of course traditonal, and while I've never dried figs before, I have tried it with apricots, tomatoes, and peaches with varying degrees of success. The problems I encountered were insects (flies, etc), and humidity at night. Sun drying can be successful if you live where it's warm and sunny all the time, and have dry breezes at night. But that's not here... We are too close to the coast and can have a thick marine layer sometimes during the day, and nights of high humidity.

You can bring things in at night, but if you have a lot, that gets to be a pain. Unless it's consistently warm and dry enough, your drying fruit can be prone to rotting. Eventually I found a good dehydrator at a yard sale, and about a year ago, purchased an Excalibur. With a dehydrator, you get a more uniform, better color, higher quality item. And it's so much easier and faster.

I've read that one can build a solar dehydrator, so that might be an option. I suspect you could find plans on the internet. :)

Perhaps something to try might be to slice figs about 1/4 inche, put them in a warm spot, perhaps a sunny window, and a small fan circulating the air. Fans don't use much power.

Before getting a dehydrator, I did dry some things in the oven, not using oven heat, but with a fan and a lightbulb. If you do that, you must remember to tape something over the controls so no one turns on the oven. This oven method works pretty well. Leave the door open a crack so humidity can escape.

I have heard, not tried, that you can put a fine mesh over whatever you are drying and that will keep insects off.

I have also seen people using hot tin roofs to dry fruits such as apricots but I am not sure how well this would work or if it helps enough to make it worth while.

Get those kids on the phone taking orders from local restaurants, I bet that would be really cute. Also quicker/safer to make a few deliveries than have them sitting out there on the street all day like tempting pedo-bait. You have seen that show with Cris Hansen right? Scary stuff...
Have them wear gloves to pick, more for the risk of allergy than food safety. Hand washing is better if it happens more frequently than glove changes. Read up on "best practices" to be sure you are doing things right, buy berry flats and watch the kids really close to be sure they are not catching toads halfway through picking or gathering figs from the ground etc. As long as you teach the little guys learn to be clean and safe there will be no chance of poisoning. Only an ass who ate 2 qts. without knowing of the laxative properties would be affected, although I bet they would feel great immediately after the "event".
There is that new family farm law to worry about though...
Nursery licenses are really necessary to prevent the spread of pest and diseases, but the chances of doing any harm, or getting "busted" is minimal when selling them locally. Maybe ask for cash or trade, maybe there are some fig growers in the area you have not met yet.

Or grow some furniture.

Wow!  That is some furniture!  :-)!  There is not much better than figs on the BBQ!  Try it!  I bet those who decline to eat fresh will fight for the BBQ'd figs!

We are straying off topic, and that chair is really cool, so I friggin bought the book.  googled it.  I understand how they do that, but aside from that, the question remains.  I'm sticking with BBQ the figs!

 I don't know about the hot tin roofs (wasn't that a movie?), but the netting over drying fruits does work. It has to be fine enough so fruit flies can't go through, and held up away from the fruits at least until they are dry on the surface. And all the edges have to be tucked in. Sun-drying is how people dried things forever - they just might not have been as particular about dust and bugs and birds and...

It was "Cat on a hot tin roof," starring?  Marilyn?  We should make a movie, "Fig on a hot tin roof!"

Yes, 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'.... Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman. :)

It was just on tv a week or two ago.

Cheesecloth worked well for me in past.