Hi everyone, my name is Matt and i have an addiction.... to growing :)

I was born and raised in Brooklyn till i moved to long island 3 years ago (mainly to get some land and have a garage for parking). All through my life in brooklyn, i was so used to fig trees being everywhere and getting them from friends and family. Once i bought my house, i knew the only tree i wanted to grow would be a fig tree ....then I was gifted a persimmon tree by my father in law and then sandy hit. Moving forward 3 years i have transformed my backyard into a mini garden and am now growing 24 pepper plants, 22 tomato plants, 6 zucchini, 6 butternut, 7 watermelon, countless cucumbers and longbeans all using conduit trellis i built. I am on a small lot too btw, 60x100. All done from seed in my grow tent i built with HID lights.

I was talking to my neighbor the other day and was telling him that when im visiting my wifes familys house (back in brooklyn) in a few months, i was going to grab some cuttings from their next door neighbor since the house is now vacant and the tree is huge (probably 50+ years old). He told me to hold on a second as he walked over to his fig tree and ripped out a sucker from the ground which had some decent roots on it and told me to plant it.......i was SOOOO not prepared. I first planted it in ground (i dont have much room anymore in ground without hitting sprinkler lines) and then i decided yesterday that instead of doing the traditional covering of plantts and HOPING it will make it through the winter i would pot up the plant and throw it in my attached garage in the winter. 

So i planted the fig sucker in a 3 or 4 gallon nursery pot right now in Farfard Growing Medium (similar to promix). It still has some leaves on it but they are wilted and its in direct sun, not sure if its best but thats what my oldschool neighbor said to do and he grows things like crazy :). I wasnt sure if i should cut off some of the lower growth and leave 2 top leaves on. I asked what type of fig and he told me its a white fig, so i will have to check out once it grows and ill take pics of fig and leaves to identify. He said he got it also from a cutting near a park near me (will need to hunt for it as well).

So now that i have the bug, I hope to eventually get 3-4 more fig trees for next season. I have done some research and am thinking hardy chicage/desert king/black Madeira and will hopefully pick up some nice BIG planters so i can get some big ole trunks of a fig tree down the line , i know costco has really cheap big planters. So i guess i will be hunting down some cuttings for those in a few months, i wish i could get a jump on this season though!

Let me know what you guys think and if i'm going in the wrong direction. 

Matt

Welcome to the forum, Matt. Sounds like your doing the right thing, but I would move the tree into the shade until it rebounds.

welcome to the forum and addiction.  im in LI as well and got hit with the bug a little over a month ago.  were on the island are you?

Thanks Dave, i will take that recommendation and put her in the shade outside. How long do you think i should leave it there?

Joshua - Thanks. I'm located in oceanside and yourself? Any recommendations for places on the island to get cuttings or empty lots with trees :-D...haha. You have quite a few growing for only getting the bug recently!

Welcome.  

Hardy Chicago and Desert King (if you protect it for the breba) should be good choices.  

Black Madeira is supposed to be excellent tasting but has a reputation for being hard to root, a slow grower, a late season fig, and for liking a lot of heat to ripen well.

MBVS, RDB, Florea, Brooklyn White are some more examples of varieties recommended for short cold zones.

Welcome! I'm sure figs won't take over you life/mind in the next coming months. lol.

Joshua - where in oceanside do you work if you don't mind me asking, small world i guess! I'm hoping the fig tree at my in-laws is still good, i know last year is was looking iffy. Good to know about the forum, i've been reading a lot here and so much good info.

Don - thanks for the recommendations, i forgot i was looking at RDB from all the rave reviews on the board. I was hoping that potting the figs would help for some of the late producing figs, but i guess its one of those things that i will only know after trying. 

binbin - thanks, its already causing me less sleep. Have to google and youtube everything figs!!!

Welcome to the forum

Welcome!   You're off to a good start.  You will definitely need a bigger container.  If the leaves recover move it into a little more sun every day.  If the leaves fall off then move it in the sun full time.  The leaves that emerge will be used to the sun.  Remember to fertilize it.

Welcome Matt. Garden World in Queens has some beautiful Negronne dark fig for $49.99, you can't go wrong. They have a Nassau branch as well. One of the best container figs.

Welcome to the club.  You will learn a lot and have a ball    such nice people here.   Joyce

Joshua   I buy my coir in bars  3 pack from Petco.  reasonable and convenient.  Joyce

Thanks guys

Rcanter, when is a good time to fertilize? I would assume after it starts growing again and roots are developing, just like most plants

Rafael, not looking for full trees - would rather grow from cuttings. Thanks tho

Hi Matt, greetings from California,   and welcome to the forum. I have some Desert King started from a friend's 50 year old tree. I visited him today, and ate a bunch of ripe DKs. A great fig IMO. When they are a little bigger in their 1 gallon pots, I'd be happy to send you one.
 

I will have lots of cuttings in fall if you want

Pretty soon there's not going to be much room in that garage for parking:)

Welcome, I am on Long Island too (west islip).  Forget about desert king or black madeira in the ground at our location.  Black Madeira in a pot only if it gets a full day sun (no shade).  I recommend Malta Black, Long d aout, nero 600m, florea, rockaway green, rdb for either ground or potted culture and if going in pots only then vdb desert king and a good strain of preto.  

Thanks for the amazing advice guys, im so happy i found this place before i started dumping in money on things that might or might not work out for me and my situation (i have done that too many times with gardening last year). This year is the year for my ultimate garden :-D

Gary - that tree is beautiful and those figs look yummy! I would love to take you up on that offer, just let me know. Thanks :)

Thanks Rafael :)

Ann - luckily i have a 2 car garage and only 1 side is used for my baby. The other side is generally all my tools and random stuff that piles up...i'm making sure i get it nice and clear so i can store the plants in there :-D

Ed - thanks for the advice, not planning on putting anything in ground in the near future. My neighbor's tree (mothertree of mine) barely came back after last winters cold snaps and i don't want to do the whole weatherization process with multiple trees either for winter.  The spots i have planned are on my paver patio and luckily after sandy, all my neighbors got trees removed so its ALL sun all the time. 

Small update:

The sucker lost all its leaves a day or two after my first post and the 2 green stems are still limp and the tip looks like its dying. Going to keep it going and see how it does with new growth, it is now in full sun per "rcantor" advice since there is no new leaves on it yet. My oldschool italian neighbor also said just to leave it and make sure you water it thoroughly, it will grow :)


This is actually a 5 gallon container, for size comparison.
 

My neighbor also just handed me 2 more suckers he pulled from his LARGE fig tree at his sons house, he described them as small brown figs. Will do some more identifications if we get some to grow and pics of leaves. He left the suckers in a cup full of water in the sun since yesterday since he forgot them. So I am not sure the viability of the suckers, but i put them in 2 gallon pot and am leaving these in the shade for a few days, ill see if they recover. Either way, ill try and get a bunch of cuttings at the end of the season from his big tree, the small tree might not have much since its fairly compact already.

 

Fertilizer, once i see new growth on the first cutting - i will apply some...until then i probably should hold off till the roots develop...sound about right? ;)

Check to be sure the pots don't have standing water at the bottom, especially the desert king.  See how a lot of perlite has floated to the top?  If the soil is saturated with water the roots wont get the air they need and they'll rot away.  Green stems will benefit from shade.  You can bring them into sun as soon as you see the tiniest bit of bud opening.

Thanks for advice. Its not in standing water as it's on top of my mulch near the drainage, the mix drains pretty good as well. It has a mix of perlite and vermiculite in it. We have had some wicked rain in the past week, so I need to ensure next time we are getting rain that it's covered so it doesn't get water logged as it's been retaining water well for a few days. I'm really hoping I'll get some growth out of it though. Once I see the other 2 perk up I'll start hardening them off to sun.

Welcome to the forum Matt.

Welcome to the forum!

Of the figs on your list, I'm growing Hardy Chicago and Desert King and others, would be happy to share cuttings in the winter.