Good morning forum... My name is Simon, I live in So. Cal(El Monte, SGV.) with my wife of 12 years.
As a kid growing up I never got why my dad had so many fruit trees in the yard, I hated the extra work it gave me with watering and raking up leaves. I would curse all fruit trees and vowed never to have any as an adult. Hahaha... He had everything from citrus to avocados, cactus to a small mexican cherry tree, mangos to guayabas, but his prized possession was a GUAMICHIL tree(which he smuggled in 30 years ago) a prickly mesquite type of tree that would give these pod type of fruit that would curve like a pig's tail. Guamuchil is a bit more common now but 25 years ago there were people always knocking on the door asking about it. He even had a fig which I didn't like. Hahaha, like I said I didn't get it.
Fast forward to 25... I fortunately was able to buy a home, it had one avocado and a guayaba tree. Hmmmm, my first thought was hacking them down. My dad talked me out of it and pruned the hell out of them and said to give them a shot to work for their spot. Unfortunately the avocado was right on the property line and had to come down for a wall, the guayabe followed shortly to make room for a back patio cover. As soon as the guyaba tree was gone I did notice how barron the yard looked, no more natural shade, it was a big tree. The house had some bushes and roses but I wasn't happy at the work I had to put into them and I felt like the reward of just having a nice looking bush wasn't enough. I began to understand the feeling my dad would get out of picking something from the tree or bush...
I'm sure you guys know what comes next, hahaha. I went out and bought an avocado and an orange tree. Some thing about caring for them when they were small triggered something inside me. Now I have limes, lemons, nectarines, apricots, I even have a small GUAMUCHIL from my dad's mother tree, hahaha...
Couple of years ago I was helping out an older neighbor in his yard and he handed me this familiar looking fruit that I knew I didn't like, a fig. I didn't remember why I didn't like it, I just knew my dad had one and it was more work for me, hahaha. Anyways, this fig was awesome, really sweet. He sent me home with some extra and my wife loved them also. So the next couple of summers I would get a nice batch from him and man were they delicious. So after he taught me about how he cares for his fig tree I deceided to try to have my own, so early this summer I bought my first fig tree, a Black Jack followed by a brown turkey and a Kadota. Those are the basic varieties my local homedepot carries. I started reading up on fog and man was I overwhelmed at all the info I found, had no idea how many different varities there are...
Tried rooting some cuttings from a few mystery figs from the neighborhood that look different from what I have and I seem to have had some luck with them. I bought a few live figs from ebay last month, this was before I found this forum, hopefully they're true to what they told me they are and I didn't get taken for a ride.
So that's my story and I'm sticking to it, hahaha. I learned so much already from being on this forum for one week and I hope my dumb questions don't get on your nerves. And I do have a lot of questions...
I currently have Brown Turkey, Kadota, and Black Jack that I have had some fruit from and those little live figs I bought from ebay are: Violet de Bordeaux, Lattarula, LSU purple, Desert King, Olympian and a Green Ischia. Like I said, I hope I wasn't dooped, hahaha...