Frank, to me this is an "unknown" fig because there isn't enough information out there about it.  I do think it might take years.  My 6 trees are still young and may take off and produce like crazy next year.   Only time will tell.  Three of my trees are a little over 2' tall and the others are not far behind.  I have not babied them like I have others.  Why?  Because I want the trees to complete a full year in my climate before giving them some special fertilizer and such.  My trees are growing just not like those with my special juice!  These 6 are in the standard 3gal black nursery pot.  Next year they will get a self watering pot and fed some super juice.  TO me, and in my climate, our summer is over.  Fall is trying to set in.  Our weather has been up and down since the past 3 weeks so I think my trees are trying to adjust to my climate.  They get full sun every day and some dry fertilizer.  Mine did fruit but the figs weren't nothing to jump and down about if you know what I mean.

Dennis-

I do appreciate the added information.  Hope the Olympians start to do good things when you give them the Dennis' Deluxe Treatment and Tonic.  I have hopes of picking some figs off my trees, next season, but I'll wait until at least 4 years before I give them the yeah, or nay.  That's if they live that long.  After last winter, my fingers will be crossed each year.

Your right about the waning summer.  I went by quickly.  The freezing cold spring didn't help either.  Up here in NYC, the nights already have that nip in the air. Back in my Salad Days, that night-chill meant school, homework and girl-hunting....now, it means dormancy....both mine, and the figs.  I become more, and more fossilized each year! : ))

Be well.  (Your "BD" tree will be mailed as soon as it goes dormant).


Frank

As stated earlier in this post, I left a couple of figs on my small Olympian, and picked the first ripe one today. Though we are in mid-November, I was really surprised at how good this fig tasted. It's different from the beginning, in that it had a slight crunchiness to the texture when I bit into it. Not seed crunchy, more like when something is just barely frozen crunchy. We have not gone below about 45 degrees here, so it wasn't frozen. Very sweet and dense, and not real figgy flavored. I enjoyed it more than the Pastiliere I had eaten several minutes earlier. The plant is in a 5 gallon pot, and was from Wellspring. So much for TC plants being less diseased though. Mine looks to have fmv, and is not as vigorous as most of my others. I'll be putting it in ground and see how it does, it tastes good enough to make me want to keep it.     

Thanks for the report. I hope mine gets closer to what yours looks like next year. How old is your tree?

Brian, I got it as a small tc plant in April, so 7 months later, I was able to harvest a ripe fig.

I don't like the large open eye

All,
 There was a lot of discussion earlier in this thread about whether these tissue culture plants would produce figs in the first few years. Figgary's post shows some definitive proof that they can.  Here are a couple of shots of a TC Olympian I also got in April from Wellspring Gardens.  I did not nurture this little tree nearly as well as I should have -- but very late in the season it did begin to put out two main crop fig embryos.  I left them on this long so that they'd get large enough not to be confused as branch buds -- they're definitely figs.

   

Cheers,
Jim

I too bought a TC Olympian from Well Spring Nursery. Mine is health and showing no signs of FMV like another member mentioned that theirs might be.  My Olympian got off to a slow start this year, I placed it with my other figs in full sun, which it did not like at all.  Maybe adjusting from being in a greenhouse to the high intensity of the sun at this altitude, hard to say.  I moved it to morning only sun and it started to thrive.  No figs developed on it this season, perhaps next, most likely the following season. I am currently letting it continue growing in and indoor greenhouse, just wanted a little more size on it.  

I hope it does well with the short growing season here in Colorado, I'll keep you posted.

I have a tiny Olympian, maybe 3" tall.  It's outside, but under white plastic sheeting to give it a bit of protection.  Doing fine, but I also note that it is kind of slow growing.  I'm planning to repot it and move it out from under the plastic in early spring.  Thanks for the pix.  Dennis, have you posted the recipe for your special super juice, or is it a secret blend?

Oh, and I won't ever buy anything from Wellspring again.  I bought tissue culture banana plants from them in 2005 and it took me three years to find out that none of them were the varieties they sold me.  Well, the Ice Cream they sold me might actually have been the Dwarf Cavandish that I had also ordered.  When I questioned them about it they told me their had been a mix-up but then a year or two later they denied ever saying that.  Must have been a mix-up over the mix-up.

JoAnn, it's no secret.  It just WOWWED me at the results in only a few weeks.  I have 4 or 5 liquid feeds that I use.  BUT the one that I like the most is this one, Florilicious Plus (FP).  It's super concentrated and A VERY LITTLE GOES A LONG LONG WAY!  I think I use one teaspoon per 5 gallons of water!  Yeah, one teaspoon!  It smells real bad but it kicked started my 2 Black Ischias in high gear after 2 years and very little growth.  Today, both of my BIs are large trees that put out lots of figs every year.  I quit posting most pictures a few years back.  But FP is my favorite liquid feed.  The stuff smell real bad but my trees love it!

The stuff is not cheap!  But hey, I shop during the off season and get special deals that way.  Last year, I had broken the top on my FP bottle.  I kept seeing a lot of flies inside my garage.....the mean green ones!  Come the find out they smelled the FP dripping on the side of the bottle.  I ended up pouring the contents into a clear ketshup bottle with a pointy top for easy measuring.  That got rid of the flies!  But I kept the bottle as  a reminder.

Here's a picture of it:

Thanks for the tip Denis's! Mrs K had bought me a BI two years ago online and arrived in great shape but has grown very little. I ll try FP next time.
Is it easy to find? When is best to use? When budding in spring or a bit later? Thanks for Your input!

By nature, BI is a dwarf tree.  Come April and May, give your tree a drink of this once a week and watch what happens.  It almost sprouts over night!  Oh, and don't get the stuff on your hands.  It smells pretty "Ripe"....if you catch my drift!

Dennis, I am a sucker for trying magic potions. I ordered this and just gave a diluted dose to all of my potted cuttings that I've started in the past six weeks. No controls (non-treated) plants but I'll report back if I've got any ripe figs when I return from a 3 day weekend! ;)

Harvey, it's pretty good stuff.  I should buy stock in the company that makes it.  But there is some other stuff that I use also use when I transplant rooted cuttings or transplant a tree.  It's called Ferti-lome Liquid Root Stimulator.  Fertilome makes some good stuff.  Their Liquid Root Stimulator eliminate transplant shock like none other.  

So.... My Olympian which I left untended in the ground as a new tree has died back almost to the soil level.  It has one green bud leafing out at an inch above ground level and another forming at half an inch above the soil line.  I did add a couple inches of mulch in February.  Next season I will be adding the mulch in November or December since we got a freak 17 degree low in Mid November this year.  So far all of my new trees are showing signs of life except for one Hardy Chicago which is a couple of years old and still dormant or dead.  I still have a bit of hope that my Olympian may bud out further up the trunk, but I don't think it will be much further up if it does.

My Olympian overwintered in my garage green house and has been in the pot shuffle with the others for weeks now.   Yesterday, I noticed a fig forming on the little guy. 

Not to bad for being a 3" tall TC plant this time last year. 

I had a similar problem also.  Put the tree in the ground potted and it looked like it made it through the winter.  But when green buds started forming at the tips, they all feel off except one. One branch died.  I took it out of the ground and put it in the sun.  A small fig started to form on the good branch. A couple of weeks later I think I see little green buds forming on about half the branches.  Just have to wait and see what nature wants to happen.  

Scott,

The same thing is happening with mine. I bought an Olympian TC last year that was just a few inches tall. It flushed out and grew pretty tall. I was pulling it out of storage a few weeks ago and just noticed it has a few good figlets forming. We both may have a chance to taste this interesting fig this summer.

I sure hope so Bill! If not. .. it's ok, I wasn't expecting any untill next year anyway. At least one would be great. 

One of my two Olympians which has awoken has a decent amount of breba on it. It will be interesting to see if they ripen this year as all my main crop figs failed to ripen before the cold set in last season.

My containerized, Tissue-Cultured, OLYMPIAN trees, bought from Wellspring Gardens back in April-2014, have survived the bitterly cold 2014-2015 Winter season.  These containerized trees were over-wintered in an unheated storage shed, from January-March, 2015, and are now breaking bud. 
Container size: approximately 18 gallons. 
Fertilizers: "ESPOMA, IRON-TONE" ...supplemented with very diluted Miracle-Grow tonics, with each watering. 
Mix: 5-1-1-1 with added granular limestone.
Full Sun/back deck, southern exposure, plenty of heat.

Last season the tiny, 6"-8", wire-like trees, from April through October 2014,  put on at least 4-5 feet of growth.  I even had to pinch back terminal buds and pick off dozens of tiny figlets.  This season, I am sure I will get some figs to ripen.  Last year there was no evidence of any diseases showing on the leaves, and the leaves remained clean and healthy throughout the growing season.  I think the added iron in the organic, Espoma, helped the robust leaves, to fend off rust infections also.

More to follow as season progresses.  So far, so good.


Frank

I noticed today that my Olympian, which died almost to the ground in winter, has started forming figlets.  It looks like I'll get to taste it again this year.