Matt- Thank you, and I'm glad you're feeling better too. Looking forward to seeing your progress as we go. It's been a blast growing these cuttings out, and I hope you have as much fun as we've been having. I checked through soil, leaves, and light fixtures again today and could only find four gnats, all of which I managed to kill. I'll check again before turning out the lights. I think I have about 18 pots in the grow room, some growing fruits/veg and some in reserve for future use. So that's the room that always takes the longest to clear. I'll have to add some dunks to my war chest for future. I hear great things about them. Sounds like you're going to have lots of trees this season. I'm jealous of your cloner already.

Sppsp- Congrats on your roots! Awesome job! No worries about the photos. I didn't snap many at that point either, because I was so nervous about getting them potted up quickly and without damaging the little roots.

Joy- Thank you, and I can't wait until you've got your new camera so I can enjoy piccies of your fig trees too. It sounds like Mai's method is working beautifully for you. LSU Purple and Celeste seem to get lots of raves for being strong growers. Sounds like they're living up to their reputation. Unk. Sheepshead sure is!

I totally understand about checking on the figs periodically. I go in a few times a day at least, kill any gnats I see, and basically just enjoy the growing plants. We've got snow on the ground outside, temps in the teens, and wind gusts of up to 50mph outside. Makes the grow room and those young plants all the more enticing and reassuring. So I putter around checking every leaf and every pot, but truthfully there's very little that the figs need me to do for them currently, while there's a lot they do for me.

Almost all fig leaves smell like kitty parfum to me. Salce is the first one that hasn't. It's got a coconut kinda smell instead. As long as the room isn't super tiny, the smell isn't noticeable. Even in a small room it passes quickly. When I had all the figs in the small bathroom window, my mother went in there and immediately asked what smelled like cat pee. Guess, I inherited her sense of smell. LOL.

I'm guessing it has roots now ;)

Matt

I followed Jon's advice for a 50/50 mix of compost and pearlite. I use Black Kow compost (seems they only distribute it as far north as Virginia).

I had some failures with some hollier tip cuttings in this medium, and some diffrent dried out cuttings from a separate vendor...both now attempting a rescue with Mai-Lolita's bag method.( low moisture)

Too much cold and wet led to rot...warmer February expected...

Either way the sheepshead looks to be a winner...I have been whacking away at some brush by the homesite to make a nice cozy spot for it. I really love the look of the leafes on it. :)

Maybe some relative-neighbor-friend in Brooklyn could ask the nice old Italiano Ladies what kind of fig it is?

Tell them a "ginocci head" who lived 2 years in Nicolosi just neeeds to know :)

I am behind on many things right now...I will catch up!  Next week I'm starting a batch of cuttings and this one I am looking forward to starting!

Lewi - awesome stuff, cant wait to see it once warmer temps hit. There are no old school neighbors left on the block, all new blood. The old ladies kept to themselves, only really dealt with one neighbor who helped them with odd stuff. That neighbor has long since moved. I will be back over at the house during chinese new year, so ill check to see how the property is doing.

Meg - i'm patiently waiting...heheh. I also started later than expected, but we all have things come up.

Here is some progress shots on my cuttings from my coir bin. This is 18 days worth of growth. Far surpassing my other cuttings in this method. Was able to put 3 of my sheepshead cuttings into cups. The ones in the baggie method are doing well and the cloner cuttings are showing root initials already.

Here's one of mine, getting there! I still have it in high humidity. I'm slowly weening it now. Very slowly, a few more weeks.

Lewi - Sorry to hear about some of your other varieties succumbing, but your Sheepshead look like they are really thriving.

Matt - Those roots are to die for! Sheepshead roots amazingly fast, and the roots are very strong. Yours are looking fantastic.

Drew - That's a stunner. Looks like it's really loving the humidity and leafing out beautifully.


Quick update: My rescued cutting has a couple of new roots starting. Hopefully, I can pot it back up very soon. I'm a bit behind at the moment, but I'm getting all of my established cuttings potted up into 12" containers. I'll snap pics in a few days.

Matt,

Nice roots. So far I'm still a "stick am in the dirt "guy...but I'm learning to appreciate the finer things in life like "cloners" and "chior."


Windowsill g.,

Only had problems with thin tip cuttings and dried out cuttings. Either i or the Mrs. overwaterd ..and they were too cold..

Sheepshead is indeed an easy rooter (only rooting one of the 3...waiting till spring).

In terms of sucess in rooting LSU Gold is a close second this winter.

I did manage to get a bud in one really dry cutting with mai's bag method ( 2014 cutting?)...its now sitting as a single node in a jiffey pot with moisture control potting soil.

I cut it out because it was leafing out in the platic bag where I was expecting roots!

First pic is a very fragile Brooklyn white. The second is a cropped sheepshead Ukn Pic.

Drew - awesome progress dude! Why did you have in humidity if you parafilmed it? I chose not to do any humidity domes, because transitioning them to RH is a pain from what i hear.

Danielle - Thanks for the update! Hopefully it makes it~!

Lewi - those leaves are awesome!!!!! One healthy looking plant with beautiful growth :)

I just took one of the dormant plants i grew from green cuttings last summer out of the garage and put in my laundry room, hoping to get a jump start on the season with it and hopefully have some fruits early. Its only a few inches tall, but hopefully the root system will be well ahead of these cuttings.

Thanks again everyone here who have been updating with progress, i really appreciate it!!!! Hopefully once spring comes, we'll have a larger group of participants.

Matt,

You have done an amazing job sharing and spreading this fig to nearly every corner of the country!!  Bravo my friend!!!

I sure can't wait to give try some fruit, most likely next year in my climate.... But who knows.

Yep, just what Scott said. Well done Matty , I can't wait to get mine started. Everyone's pics look great ,very strong work!!
From the way the baby leaves look it looks so Chicago Hardyish ........it's not funny.

Here are some updates on my sheepshead cuttings, these were put in coir bin on 1/17 and then transferred to these cups on 2/5. The roots are loving the airy medium, cant overwater these puppies ;)

The 3 in front are sheepshead
 

beautiful root development, some secondary roots growing. Some are lignifying because i pre-wet the medium and left too many air gaps. I did it differently the second time around.
 

Some of my other cuttings, all started on 1/17 as well, the coir cups are not doing well and will probably move them into my 5-1-1 medium.
 

Everybody's trees are looking fantastic!

Here are a few pictures from the potting up. This is "Big Sister" going into a 12inch pot. The roots have filled the old pot very nicely, and I caught it before the roots started wrapping around the bottom. I have moved her for now into a west facing window in the guest room.

The rooting cutting has been doing great, and it's putting out good roots now. Time to pot it again.

Planted the Sheepshead today, it is protected in a recycled wire cage to protect it from...Sheep...and other critters.

Looks great Lewi! I'm happy to see she is going outside for some, i have snow in my forecast for the first day of spring :( :( 

My plants are nice and healthy - i didn't get as many growing as i would've hoped. I lost a bunch due to my poor storage of some in the fridge and they molded before i even began to root them. Was hoping to use some of them as rootstock for next year's grafting attempts since these are super vigorous. I'm waiting till my plants can go outside so i can put some slow release fertilizer on and get them really going :)

Would love to see who can get them to fruit first :-D

Thanks Matt...

It's getting down to the high 30's at night here (predicted)...so a bit of a delay in potting up the rest of the cuttings...typical spring here with ups and downs. I wish you success with this year's spring rooting. :)

Edited to fix auto correct error, adjust the predicted temps lower, and add that the young and green in ground sheepshead will be given winter protection for the next 2 nights...

1. After many rooting fails, a few times I would get to around this and the clipping would just die. This looks like my first successful rooting. 

 

I only kept one rooted cutting, I should have kept two, one for backup! I transferred mine to a bigger pot, but it's not happy from the cold conditions. Hopefully it will warm up around here soon.

Peter - looks good dude
Drew- Holy cow, thats huge, it looks amazing man! Very jealous, your definitely at the forefront of growing these guys.

Everybody's cuttings look great!  Mine are doing good as well.  I will try to post pics tonight.