Hi,
I want workhorses. So this means productive trees .
You guys, if I could ( importation laws), I would send you some cuttings from a tree that I do no more have, but I can find with a thousand km trip ... You'll see how growing a non productive fig tree is .
The trick being, that you expect it to fruit , and it shows you figlets so it could fruit ... but they will never ripe for  ... whatever the reasons .
I've been into that game. Those trees where 3 meters high and the same as large ... with lots of beautiful leaves ... You'd like them :)

But of course, I cant' expect my trees to fruit if I don't take good care of them. So that's part of the fun. More wood means more promises of figs . Promises, yes , promises ...
I have plenty of neighbors that get crazy comparing their trees to mines ... I don't even know how they know that I have the trees ... -N-S-A- spy ?
But curiously, they don't want advices ... Stubborn people !
Last year, I scared one. He asked for a cutting, and I told him, ok let's exchange cuttings . Curiously, he then said no ...
I still think that he got scared of the comparison of the future trees !

There is something about veggies and fruit produced from my own yard and toil that I can't get from those bought elsewhere.

Wonder, excitement, joy, pride, all these things help to connect me to what really matters.

The cycle of nurturing, the give and take,  makes every bite worth it and all that more satisfying. 

I would say I would fall in the middle- I like growing things but I also like the veggies/fruit and being able to produce our own food

Not to mention the obsessive collecting aspect. Ah, the biblical fruit, the mythic locales and the mystical paradises. Someone once said, a book is the fastest freighter, I would say, this FORUM is close behind!

Also, there's the fellowship of all you specacular fellow fig fanatics.

Then, growing figs, that's fun, but tasting figs, SUBLIME.

i like looking for figs that will give problem. hard to root, hard to grow, hard to hold on to the figs. it's just fun getting that cutting to ripen a fig on the tree. got Calvert and Black Madeira to work. next on the line is Pastiliere, Black Ischia, and Barnissotte. when i first joined, all of them were said to be in bad health. so far no specific issue. not in the fig paradise zone, but we must have good enough weather for the figs :) 

not sure what i'm after next.. but it's the whole challenge of getting to taste those figs. i might start chasing after Dall'Osso, making sure i find the one that will have hard embryo in the bottom half.