My NY's Resolution - grow figs from cuttings successfully! No death (or minimal death), please. Seeing all your cuttings - even in winter - is inspiring. Makes me want to go out and take some cuttings and give it a whirl. Can I be brave and try it now? Or should I wait for spring?

Unless someone says I'll fail miserably without a doubt I want to get a few started. What have I got to lose? Besides confidence ;)

"What have I got to lose? Besides confidence "

Your cuttings !

I need to trim back my Desert King by a bit for shape - so not really. I have a bit to play with. I'd rather kill my own cuttings than gifted/desired cuttings. I made that mistake last year. I need to do it right with my own before I take on any one else's

Nichole
That is good.
But I was just kidding with semantics...

Sorry - emotions are hard to read over text. I still sparkly heart you ;)

Go for it! Get together with someone successful in your area. See how they do it. Then both of you evaluate your space and go shopping to get what you need. Listen to them talk about how to evaluate ingredients. Al of us started somewhere.

You might want to keep few old branches for breba crop.  :)  If you trim everything branch back, you won't have any ripe DK this year. 

Yah it's gonna take a couple years to get the shape I want from this DK tree. Gonna cut it in half and leave the lower branches. If I knew then what I know now I would have bought a very different DK tree...

I didn't get any breba fruit last year. Maybe not this year either. :(

my resolution for fig this year is learn how to import figs from other countries legally. maybe in few years, i might be able to import few and share with others. 

I think that's a great goal. Fun adventure, for sure.
And if that fails, I won't tell anyone if they arrive in a less-than-legal fashion ;)

Nichole:

First off, glad to see you back.   I haven't seen you post in a while. 

I was nervous at first too, but it's really easy.   There is no time like the present.   I would tell you to start right now.  You've got a month of rooting, a month or two of growing in a small pot.  Before you know it, well be putting these babies outside.

Good luck!

Thanks for the kind words. When I lost my cuttings to mold last season I was a bit bummed. Took a little break, but ready to try again.

Nichole,

I understand your excitement to get started. I let my excitement get the best of me and now have 19 one gallon pots to nurse through to warmer weather here.  Thankfully warmer temps are a couple of months away here in the Houston area.  I should be OK though since I have some room to set up grow lights.  I'm using a screw in grow light in a pole light with a flexible neck and it is working good for me so far.

So, that's what you need to consider.  If you have room for grow lights it is probably OK to start now.  If you are limited for space then count out 2 months from your last frost date and start your cuttings then.  At least that's the kind of timing I've seen on my first set of cuttings. 

Another bit of advice is to try starting the cuttings in multiple ways to see which works best for you and as someone mentioned save some cuttings if you can in case the first attempt doesn't work.  Cuttings in damp spaghnum moss did not mold for me but were much slower rooting.  Cuttings in 60/40 perlite/potting soil in 32 oz deli containers in a heated Sterlite container rooted (and leafed out) quicker but had more mold issues.

Bottom line is nothing beats experience.  If you want to try it now for experience go for it.  But here's another tidbit of advice.  Once you get those "practice cuttings" going you will probably treat them like the rarest cuttings on earth, I know I did. : )

I have a grow light for seed starts so i could always use that if need be.

Seattle's last frost is listed march 10th. Close enough to 2 months out :)

Good for you Nichole!!  I had problems too last summer with rooting - I thought I had mold, I think they were the calluses but I didn't know.  I also rooted some in water, but never got around to potting them up, then I read water roots are not good, so I tried to re-root them in moss and then.............  well, I gave up on them.  Now I have a bunch of cuttings and I am back on the rooting band-wagon!  If you use the moss technique, definitely use the orchid sp moss from Lowes - it really is nice then the Mosser Lee sp moss, not as twiggy and grassy.

Thanks for the moss tip. I will check it out!

Picked up a bunch of supplies via amazon. A heating pad (our house stays pretty chilly), some new rooting hormone (dip n grow), and I'm collecting plastic containers. 

Here we go...

Good luck!  Soldier on!

Okay so I have some cuttings started in a hard plastic container, similar to the containers Rafed posted in another thread. I have those set in a plastic tote and that is sitting on top of a seed heating mat because our house stays in the 50s and 60s. I stuck a small thermometer and humidity meter into the plastic container that is housing the moss and cuttings.

That meter tells me that container is 78 degrees with a humidity level of 82%. Should I adjust either the temp or humidity?

Wow!!  Everything sounds great!  I don't know about the humidity level, but when I open my totes to peek in there they are definitely more humid then the house.  I started mine the Sat. before Christmas and some had roots by the next Sat!!  I cupped them early this week.

I stuck a shirt between the tote and the heating pad and that brought the temp down to 71-73 degrees. I'm a little more comfortable with that temp. With the temp at 78 it would sometimes creep into the low 80s (dependant on how warm my house was) so the low 70s is safer. More wiggle room.

I did some reading and haven't found anything real firm on humidity other than "they like it humid"... I've seen a couple people give some numbers... 50%, 60%... but nothing real firm. So I'm opening the container a little more to get the humidity down a smidge. That's a bit of a guessing game though. It could be fine as is.

Nichole, our Longue d'Aout (s) are in route!  We shall meet soon!

Woohoo! Fun :)

Nichole,

Look up some of ascpete's recent postings.  He mentioned he was using ~75F and had good success. I'm also using 75-76F with good results.  78 was probably just a tad high, the cooler temps you are using now seem more reasonable.  As far as humidity, I should be more scientific about it like you.  I found that if I left the lid to my Sterlite container unlatched no or little moisture collected on the inside.  If I latched the lid, moisture collected and I had mold issues.  Also leaving the lid unlatched did not make it difficult to keep the temp inside the Sterlite container at 75-76F, but my house is a little warmer than yours, typically around 66-67F.

I started out with my heating mat under my bin, but it was getting to hot for my taste. I put the heat mat on top of the lid of the container with a towel on top of that to focus the heat on the bin and have been pleased with the results. Cuttings have responded well and I am averaging temps of 70-75 and humidity of 70-80. Once I get more leaves I will place under grow lights.

Interested to hear other people's experiences with providing bottom heat with the seedling mat.