Other than watering and occasional sprays of Neem, my figs are just doing their thing now. Fruit is slowly ripening; bugs are under control. My airlayers are also on autopilot.

I needed other botanical pursuits to keep me busy. So this evening, I turned to spices and tropicals. I trimmed up the citrus trees and potted up a dozen cacao seeds, a cardamom, and a galangal. Already had taro, pineapples, bamboo, pomegranates, bananas and turmeric growing well. Later on, most will be coming inside, so that will entail some trimming and repotting and such.

What plants do you focus on when the figs cease to need supervision? What do you do to keep busy until the next round of rooting?

Hi John, I'm new to figs but since I've been a renter up until last month, I've always had container plants...mostly herbs (sage, basil, rosemary, chives, oregano, mint), orchids, succulents (aloe, string of pearls), a peace lily, a palm or two, a few citrus like lemons and about 4 key limes. I also have 2 loquats that I started from seeds that I got from a few plums at one of the last US Space Shuttle Liftoffs down at Cape Canaveral a few yrs ago. My big baby is a ficus tree that I acquired at a Dominicks Grocery store over 8yrs ago while residing in Chicago. He just got repotted into a new container and my arms still ache from that one! We hang white strands of lights in him for our Xmas tree for the last few years now. All of these keep me busy and keep the dog jealous. I'm excited to add a few cool figs to my menagerie since I now have a place to put down roots!

fun never ends with figs. i'm rooting few more. the trees still need daily care since they are all in containers. checking water adding things as needed. will be topping with iron-tone this weekend. some of the leaves can use some.

John,

Well........I grow a LOT of fruiting plants, pushing 1000 I would guess.  By far though the plants that get the bulk of my time and take the most energy are the 200 blueberries.  Not only do they get acid treated water I get a truckload of horse bedding a week to mulch them with.  

Pleased to say I am tending a Passiflora seedling germinated from a batch of seeds supplied  by another forum member.

I forgot to mention the mulberries, peaches, olives, raspberries, grapes and hops. It's a jungle out there.

I work on my pomegranates, guavas, bananas, passion fruit, dragon fruit and papayas. Dragon fruit have my interest at the moment. They have a mind of their own and you can't force them to do anything they don't want to.

Nice thing about knowing how to propagate it keeps me busy.

i have plants rooting at every one time or another

Thanks for the tip on the hops, Greg. I'll have to try that.

Liza,

It depends.  The general wisdom is to let the stable waste mellow for a few months.  If it is 100% manure you have to let it mellow, compost and even then it is not very good for the blueberries because the PH is still very high.  If it is is horse bedding it is different.  The stuff I get is 90-95% pine chips some urine soaked and the rest manure and waste alfalfa. It is from the stalls where the horses stay at night.   I don't let this stuff mellow and it is fine because the water to irrigate the BB is treated with sulfuric acid (Battery acid) to lower the water PH to 5 so the high PH of the small amount of manure does not matter.  

thats why i like figs . 
no manure no compost and they still bring out good or even better crop in worst enviroment.

The figs sure are easier.  While the blueberries hate my high bicarbonate water it is candy to the figs.

I've got a largish raised bed garden that keeps me busy when I'm not shuffling figs. This photo is from last October, when the growing season around here is close to over.

 

I've also got an orchard-in-recovery. This is a small percentage of the orchard, which looks much better today (and is 30 trees larger) than it did last October when I took this photo. The rock garden remains, waiting on me to make the time to build rock walls with it. That project is part of a loooong list.



That list includes a fence to keep out this walking wrecking crew...

 

...they and a few friends are largely, though not solely, responsible for the thrashed-looking trees in the previous photo. If you look closely you may see them standing on the outside of the temporary deer fence. The permanent fence is coming along slowly - hopefully complete by the time snow falls in November or December.

After the fence is done I can go back to the full time job of controlling for ground squirrels, an assortment of hungry and aggressive birds and the occasional bug infestation, thankfully not nearly as bad as the bug and disease pressure from the Midwest on back to the Atlantic Coast.

I've also got blackberries, raspberries, serviceberries, gooseberries and a few blueberry plants in pots. Anybody want to come lend a hand (and your back) to some of the labor in my yard? I'll trade you zucchini, radishes and maybe a beet or three for the work.

Tend to veggie garden, cut grass etc etc.