I just joined the forum a few days ago and thought some might want to know something about me and what I live doing. I live outside San Antonio about 40 miles in a small town name Bandera. We normally have excellent weather around here and so tar this year, we have only had three or four days where it got slightly under freezing, around 29 to 21 degrees which makes it perfect for growing different figs and other fruits.
I got into figs mainly after my wonderful mother finally showed me her method of making fig preserves which I have loved just about all my life. Since I grew in the lower Rio Grande Valley (Mission and McAllen) of Texas, I have lived around figs, citrus, date palms, mango's and all sorts of other vegetables and fruits. I lived on oranges and grapefruit since my dad took care of about 400 acres of them and we had 10 acres of them on our home place. It was a very healthy life style and I was never sick. Taking 3 years of FFA, it's hard to get away from agriculture and the desire to grow things. Guess that's why my back half acre is an orchard that Adam and Eve would envy. I bet they didn't even have persimmons or a grapefruit tree...lol..I do.
I presently have about 40 fruit trees on my 1/2 acre back fenced in yard including varieties of plums, apricots, nectarines, peaches, persimmons, apples and several fig trees. So far I don't have a large variety of fig varieties, mainly Alma, Yellow long neck, Texas Blue Giant, California Black Mission and Celeste. I am propagating several other varieties such as Flanders, Desert Giant, Dora's Delight, Chicago Hardy and one I located here locally that is purple in color, amber inside and gets from 2 to 2.5" in diameter, probably a large Brown Turkey. Once they have ripe figs, I will put some photos on here of the fruit and leaf, maybe somebody can help me identify it. It makes excellent preserves and has a nice sweet flavor.
I am always looking for other varieties that will do good here, I mainly like the medium to large size figs from the size of Alma's and larger (2 to 4" in diameter). I am always concerned over the sellers on ebay because I see where other members have had issues with some of them sending cuttings other than the ones listed or dried out and dead cuttings. Only problems so far have been from Wellspring who's plants are awfully small, hope they survive and a seller who goes by dausername1 who I see others have also had issues with (sending varieties other than what is listed and dried out cuttings). Would like to know if other members have had issues with these two sellers. I don't know why sellers do this, dausername only sells most his cuttings for $10, is it really worth it to create a bad name for yourself for such little? I see he seldom ever gets bids on his listings.
Anyway, that is a little information on me and where I come from. Am looking forward to hearing from other members and their experiences with figs and ebay. Good luck to everyone and happy fig growing. Blessings to ya'll from the beautiful Texas Hill country. Don (newk on F4F.
I would like to find cuttings for Panache and Black Madeira. Would love to do some trading.