Spectacular!

This is dedication to the hobby! Looks amazing! I have a small deck that houses my 'orchard' but it came with the house.

Congrats, Dennis! 

It's beautiful!  Have you already "outgrown" it?   :)

Nice deck. Curious. When you have a chance Dennis, please post photos of the drains: French and Homemade. It will be invaluable as well as it will crystallize the plan an execution for the deck.

Seriously, 6 acres per tree? How far is the property from your home? Interested to read about that fig project when it happens. How much for a half acre? Ok, round it to one a acre but you have to ship it to Tallahassee. I have a coupon code for free shipping...EARTHDAY14.

Wow !!! Great job Dennis

Norhayati

Very nice, you'll have many wonderful hours of enjoyment on your new deck.

Hi snaglpus,

Is there a basement under that deck ? It would be handy to do the shuffle by getting the pot upstairs and then downstairs with the elevator ...
Where is the elevator button for lifting the pots ?

:P  - you can always try to make it better ...

Nice job :)
Did you consider the total weight of the pots ? Will the terrace handle it ?

that's an awesome idea. have basement to store the figs, and some sort of elevator to bring them up... no more carrying the pot around. amazing.. 

Nice!

My deck is made is 2x8 and 2x6 lumber. It's connected to the main deck and can support my trees.

Pete, I do use my basement to winterize some trees. The basement is my son's apartment for now. But he will be moving out next year.

JD, I'm not planting 1 tree per 6 acres. I've only planted 5 trees on the property about 10' from each other. I can plant more....I just haven't done that yet. The land is not legally mine. The owner said the land is too much for him to manage by himself. So, he lets me use it until he decides when to divide some up to give me in writing. Our agreement is written and recorded. The property is only 5 miles from my house.

Here's a rough sketch of my home made backup drain. The bucket (black) has tiny hole drilled all around the sides and top. It is filled half-way with large chunks of gravel (brown). Then I added a plastic food container (purple) with lid and drill hole all around it. Then added larger chunks of rocks (red) inside the container. Cut a hole for the garden hose on top, close the lid. Place the container on top of the gravel then continue filling up the bucket with gravel. The hose connects to my pump which is 12V. It's a clear water pump and I only use it when the French drain isn't working fast enough. The pump can remove 55 gallons of water in 2 mins.



Here's a pic of a french drain. It's just a 4" flex hose full of hose surrounded by shipping popcorn all wrapped in plastic mesh.


cheers,

Looks totally wonderful!!  And Dennis no worries, defiantly no hard feelings just wish we could have worked out a date where you could come, need Charlotte's #1 fig guy... ha went to a place Harvey was sweet enough to find for me the sold Pro Mix and who's card did they give me as a big fig guy in the area? LOL I was like "Oh I know Snaglpus " I will look forward to a Fig Deck Fest...but don't get so many that there isn't room for people..

Dennis
Nice setting...all you need is couple of rocking chair to enjoy the fig trees...
Mark

All those figs, a new deck, a yard, a job - you think he has time to sit and enjoy them???

Thanks Gloria!  Now you're my BFF!  HA!

I'm in Hi-Tech Garden Supply every week!  It's on my way home from work and easy to pop in and chat.  Its where I get my big boom liquid fertilizers.  The manager, Steve, told me that Harvey called looking for Pro-Mix.  They now carry both varieties of Pro-Mix.  They use to only carry the BX....now they have both.  I sold Steve and his employee a tree last year.  Steve said a lady came in talking about me, Snaglpus.  I told Steve it had to be you because you were the only friend on the forum that I know in this area.  Steve's a good guy.  I've learned a lot from him at HTG.  I gave him a couple of jars of my Drunken Fig Jam and he loved it!

Say, HTG prices are pretty high but they are the place in town that carries Pro-Mix.  Figs grow very well in Pro-Mix.  Make sure to mulch your trees heavily or they could dry out fast on a 90+ sunny day.  If you really like Pro-Mix--Keep an eye open at Big Lots.  Last year, Big Lots had 8 bales of Pro-Mix.  On that day, everything was 75% off.  I got each bale for $7 bucks!!!  I bought them all!   I still got 5 bales in my shed!  I mix it with Daddy Pete's Potting mix.  Which is another great potting mix.  Let me know if you want so UPM.  I have a source for that too!  It's great for rooted cuttings.  Whenever I see a good deal on something, I usually buy it all!

Ed, my wife already gave me the comment about spending too much time working on figs.  So, this afternoon, I will be clearing off the top deck and cleaning it up for her.....after I finish moving all my figs out of the garage.  HA!

You are a real energizer bunny, Dennis. I hope you can make it to the Northeast fig meeting this year (if there is one ...?)

Congrats Dennis! I'm building a 2x4 deck for my pots! LOL

So what are you going to do to prevent that deck from getting stained?

LOL, Dennis, I just saw your post about Steve letting you know I was scoping the place out to find Gloria some ProMix HP.  It was a challenge I could not pass up after she said nobody had it around there.  I had a nice chat with Steve but what's this idea he promotes that a cloner is the best method of rooting figs?  After my chat with him I ended up buying one online and tried it for some quince and ended up in total failure. Seems to be a popular method for MJ growers, though.

ok

Harvey, what's up man? The reason Steve was promoting buying a cloner is because it works! He's a salesman. Last year, he showed me a few fig tree with these ginormous leaves. I asked about the tree and he told me the cuttings came from a friend of his. He showed me the cloner and I asked him to prove to me that the cloner works. I gave him some old moldy Nero 600m cuttings plus some Pleasant Gee cuttings and Trianon France fig cuttings. Guess what? In 20 days all rooted including all 6 of the moldy Nero 600m cuttings!!!!! I asked Steve how? Then he shared with me how they did it. Do you need more proof? Here are 2 pictures of my 2 cloners. Those on top leafed out and rooted in 30 days. They need to be potted up now, but I don't have the time to do it at the moment. Both cloners are under grow lights.





This method is really the same method as rooting in water, BUT backed with a lot science! In the past, I tried rooting in water and when I forget the change the water, the cuttings would die. Well, with the cloner, the water is airrated. Plus has a teaspoon of Rapid Start root stimulator and 5ml of hydrogen periodize every 3 days. THAT"S IT!!!! I like this cloner idea so much that...I build one! Now, I have 3!

Now the neat thing about the cloner is NO GNATS!!!!! A few years ago, Martin (I think it was Martin) bought a bucket cloner. He tested it and reported back that it did not work. I'm not sure what he did or did not do, but I know now that this thing works!!!! Now, the cloner has a pump inside and if ran continous in a hot area can heat the water up. Well, guess what, Steve sold me a timer that allow you to run the pump every 15 minutes then off for 15 minutes. This keeps the water from getting too hot. Me? I don't have this problem. My gargare is insulated. No more rooting in bags or moss or dirt! It's hydroponics for me from now on!

OH!  I forgot to id those trees in the pictures. 

In the first picture there are nothting but "Majic" fig cuttings.  They were on eBay about 2 months ago from the ladies in Seattle.  I don't think the figs are Desert King!  I wanted them so time will tell! 

In the second picture, in the cloner, there are a variety of cuttings.  This cloner is a 64 cutting cloner.  At the moment, the cloner has 62 cuttings.  I'm testing some green cuttings and at the moment they are working fine.  Each cutting has 6 nodes.  The cuttings here are:

Black Greek DJ
Col de Dam Noir GH
Dom cuttings
Carini
Bourjassotte Grise HC
Bissirri 1
Bissirri 2
Bissirri 3
Nordland MN
Pat's Fig
Black Spanish MN
Salce
Acciano
Magic
Pleasant Gee
and a few others

Those potted up in small pots are:
Col de Dame Noir
Nero 600m -- there are six in the photo!
Steve's fig
Pleasant Gee
Hardy Jersery
Trianon Fig France

Chris's Purlple Portuguese -- the one with the yellow leaves---this was sent to me from a forum member last week--THANKS JD!!!

In the first picture, there is a dead dried up grape vine that I got from Lowes.  I gave it some Grow Big liquid fertilizer and water and stuck it under my grow lights.  As you can see, it came back to life.  I got it for free at lowes.

Thank you for the information on the cloner, I had been wondering about something like that!  Yes, pretty easy to build, and lots of plans on the interweb.

Very nice deck, it will be a joy to peruse with coffee in the mornings.  

Great info, Dennis!  I had not heard about the use of hydrogen peroxide.  Do you change your water at all or just keep adding hydrogen peroxide?

I still laugh at how we got around to this....because Gloria said ProMix was not available in her area. :)

How much of the cuttings are under the rubber stopper?  I'm surprised you can leave what looks like 4-6" out and they don't dry out before roots form.  Is the room humid?

BTW, what brand is it?  Do you have photos of the ones you made yourself?  Some of the plans on the net are mister (or fogger) only and some are sprayer only and some use both.  Since yours is working I'd love to know the brands and procedures you're using.

Thanks!

WOW Dennis.... Absolutely gorgeous.... Good luck with your new venture into hydroponics my friend