Hello everyone.  I've been getting some good advice from searching this forum and thought it's about time I introduce myself.

        

We have an Osborne Prolific that was planted in 2011, so it's 3 years in ground now. (See photo below of when we first planted it.) We surrounded it with fencing to protect from the deer.  Then added netting to the top to keep out birds.  (They somehow got in anyway.)  Then we added netting to the bottom to keep out the squirrels.  This year we took the fencing and netting down as the tree leaves and branches were beginning to grow through it, poor thing.

   

I'm trying organza bags for the first time, with some success. (Hence the decorated tree in the last photo) Figs are starting to ripen now.  Squirrels have gotten to some that they've been able to get off the tree, but they haven't been able to get into the bags, so they are pretty mushed up.  Birds are pecking the higher up ones that aren't bagged, but that's fine with me.     

We are in the Bay Area of California.  We are just beginning to eat the figs this season, and they are sooo delicious! 

I love reading about everyones' experiences, successes, struggles, questions.  Thank you all!

Very nice! I have birds and beetles that damage my figs. Squirrels don't come in the yard because my dogs are out a lot.

Welcome to the forum. The OP looks really nice, and the tree looks really nice decorated with bright organza bags. You have to fight birds and varmints to get your share and they just sit back and let you do all the work.

Trap and relocate the squirrels per your boroughs ordinances
Wrap the trees with netting for the birds.

Oh and Welcome

Welcome to the forum. That's a nice fig you have there.

Hi DebJRB, and nice to have you on the forum. I am only an hour north of you, and I also have an in-ground Osborne Prolific. I have been enjoying a bountiful harvest from my young tree. I like this fig very much. I don't seem to have the critter problems that others are experiencing, maybe because of the healthy predator population, (bobcats, hawks, owls). Or maybe because there is such a bounty of food in the area, that they haven't noticed my figs. Good luck with yours.

DebJRB,

Welcome to THE forum where it all happens :)

I just acquired 5 cuttings of O.P.  (not unknown O.P.), from a tree that was grown by Otto & Sons Nursery (I don't know much about them), yesterday and I am rooting them all.
Read a lot good about this variety.
Thanks for sharing your pics.

Welcome.  Nice looking tree!

Thank you, everyone!

Nice tree!

Trapping and relocating wildlife without a permit is illegal in California. Just putting that out there.

I'm in Oakland. So I suspect we're neighbors.

lisascenic, Yes, I'm just north of Berkeley. 

I can't imagine trying to get rid of a squirrel population!  They are just too plentiful. So I wouldn't be relocating animals, although someone had suggested we do that with our gopher problems when we were setting traps (to kill).

I came home to another organza bag with mushed fig on the ground today.  And in picking some, found more pecked at or slightly bitten inside the bag.  Sigh.  At least we are keeping more for ourselves than in the past, but the bags aren't a sure thing.  Or maybe it's the color.