Hello fig friends -- I am so bored because of the cold, cold artic winds(-15*C windchill) and have to come up with a topic to break the ice. Well these are the places I have my fig trees/cuttings and thankfully my wife love figs. She grumbles alittle that I am messy. Places I store my figs are:

Unheated Garage               =  Over 150 pots, various sizes
Patio Room                        =  16 pots(Woke up)
Living Room                       =  9 pots, 1 gal(Woke up)
Upstairs Empty Bedroom    =  2 For Now Until Rooting Goes Full Steam
Boiler Room (Rooting)        =  3 Small Rooting Trays & 1 pot
Backyard(Not In-Ground)  =   27 potted trees with pots almost buried  & some not
In - Ground  Trees              =   21  Various tree sizes
Fridge                                 =   2 Zip lock bags of cuttings
Buried In-Ground Cuttings   =   Likely 7 variants


Started rooting a little early as a warm up to my plans to go full steam rooting in late March. As it is, I am finding rooting stuffs that I normally used are misplaced. Good that I am doing a little trial run now.

Paully,

We are supposed to set some records this weekend for cold and snow down to 1000'. I'll only get rain, and some cold for a few days, and then I have to return to paradise again. Cold for us, but nothing like what my fig friends in tghe east have endured this winter, and it looks liked two more storms in the next few days.

Everything is awake. Everything, 1000+ plants, spend the winter in ground or in pots in the yard. Newly rooted plants and cuttings still being rooted are in the greenhouse, 8' square.

Wait a minute Jon! Are you saying that the only greenhouse you have is 8' square?! If that's so -dude- you just got it too easy out there in paradise ;-) !
I'm in the process of building a 4'X8' cold frame with plans for a 16X32 GH - at least. Must be nice to plant everything in the ground & let 'em grow :-} . -Good for you man.

Paully;
I've got about 30-40 1gal pots in my attic. Gotta watch them though. They're starting to warm up & I don't want them to break dormancy in the dark. 

Also have about 12 varieties buried in the ground on the south side of my house. Some are in-gound trees, some are in their pots & buried. I'm sooo ready to dig 'em up & give 'em a proper planting. Soon, very soon. 

Holly Toledo Bill, figs in the attic !! Must be quite a task getting them up there. Man, I am glad I started this thread. I suppose truckies liked Rafed have them in his 18 wheeler too. Lets hear from others where other interestings spots figs are kept. Oh yes, I forgot to add I have another 20 plus in a old unused freezer outside. I have to air the plants every week otherwise molds will appear. The freezer provides excellent shelter for young plants.

Jon - perhaps this is the best time to visit fig paradise. I know there are quite a number of Canadian snow geese(people) hibernating in Palm Springs.

Its embarassing to mention compared to others who have so many but

Attic - some first season ones stored- real pain to get em there useing ladder.
Lower level- some on bookcase - some on sitting on top of bin lid not inside bin
Laundry room some on shelf - some on top of dryer.
Laundry room- scion on shelf
Scion - in zip lock container in bathroom -by heat vent.
Garage- both sidewalls, backwall, behind winter stored car.
Outside - nothing
Thats it not much at all
This season i eat all ripe figs as daughter is off to college.
Wife and son dont eat figs
Wife is very easy going and understands my pasion for them long as there are no bugs from them - which i have none this season.

I have a 10' X 24' insulated shed that I store my potted fig plants in.

Paully ,
My fig storage in NH-Zone 5 . Lowest outside temp so far minus 15*F

Barn basement- 3 sides 3/4 soil bermed  -   45 -  5 gallon sub irrigated buckets and 2- 20 gallon sub irrigated pots.
Lowest recorded temp 26*F - highest 35*F

Insulated bulkhead to house basement -  15 - 5 gallon sub irrigated buckets of breba cultivars or youngest/most prized varieties.
Lowest temp 34*F -highest temp 45*F.
Small space heater used to keep above freezing.

House basement under lights -  100 plus cuttings.

Self control - 0

Kerry

Hello Kerry, I am sure some of us have germplasm size collection. You are right on the dot about "0" self control, more so for us from
zone 6 and below. Fresh figs taste sooo good and the wife enjoys them, favourite fruit.

Paully ,
I never expected to have 40 or more varieties , but forum members are so generous with trades and gifts, and sometimes there are irresitable cuttings for sale.
Over the next few years with a tiny bit of self control I hope to whittle it down to the 10 to 20 best performers for my area and situation.

I've toyed with the idea of planting some pots of my green/yellow varieties at a community garden site, hoping most people wouldn't know when they are ripe. It is a little too far away really.

For now it is just the driveway and sub irrigated pots.
Extra young plants of the hardiest varieties get sold when I sell veggie seedlings in the Spring.
Best ,
Kerry
drivewayfarmer
Zone 5 NH

Kerry,
Sounds like you may have one of the best possible fig storage spots. That barn basement is probably like a winter resort for your figs. If it's soil-bermed on 3 sides & well insulated in the front, I'd say you've got quite the safe haven for fig storage - IMHO. Just be sure to leave room in there for a storm refuge ;) . Do you have any pics of it that you wouldn't mind sharing? 

I'm a little envious of that scenerio. I could store all my potted figs plus all my root veggies & winter squash in something like that without my wifey opening a closet & saying 'what the heck is this'!?

This is a little off-topic but  I want to point something out that has crossed my mind  a few times but haven't yet mentioned. You folks in the north, such as NH, the NW, CAN, etc may have one important advantage over us folks in the more mid-continent zones. Even though you have longer colder winters, you also have longer days in the summer time = more hours of sunlight for your figs to grow/ripen.

For comparison, my typical summer day here in z6 goes from about 6:30am to about 8:15pm (CT). Whereas a mid-summer day as far north as NH may run from just b4 6:am to about 10pm! Please correct me here if I'm wrong Kerry.

I don't have any scientific data to back this up but I'm just thinking that the figs have gotta love those couple extra hrs of sunlight. I do know this is one reason that folks in the NW coastal areas can grow monster size (prize winning) pumpkins. Apparently cucurbita species thrive on all that extra sunlight!

Anyone else have any comments on my "longer days effect" theory?

By the way, I forgot to mention the back bedroom that I, long ago, commandeered as my space. That's where all my fig rooting takes place. Some in 1 gal pots, some in Jon's new baggie method, some in bins of sp-moss.  Couple of large, re-purposed, aquariums serve as rooting/growing chambers.

My 6yr old calls this room "Dad's Lab" - I kinda like it :-) .

Only one forum member has ever seen this inner sanctum of fig propagation. You are sworn to secrecy wildforager aka Little John. You can neither confirm nor deny it's true existence. Remember my men are watching you L J :-0 ! 
  

Bill ,
The barn basement would be better if I could afford to make a more insulated room inside of it. As it is , just to get maybe one degree of additional protection , I hung across the "ceiling" and made "walls" of some extra wide floating row cover that I had around for garden purposes. That makes a sort of room for the figs ,floor is dirt and the side with no partial soil berm gets all the snow bermed against it with the snow thrower. Last Winter it got down to 20*F , this Winter 26*F , the snow berm making all the difference,I think.
No pictures so far , probably for the best as it is a bit of a mess down there.
Greenhouse frame 30 x 48 stored there (no land to put it on , so sold, to be picked up this Spring) and greenhouse benching , some used for driveway garden.

I think you are correct about the longer days here being helpful in ripening figs. Don't get the heat , but the extra light helps. Last summer was perfect here, warmer than usual , but all my figs were to young to produce.
Hope this season is similar to 2010 here.
Kerry

I always store my plants in a basement cellar where temperature stays under 41F until mid March (& then stars creeping up). This year I left the the three years old ones in the unheated garage with a small heater running and temperature observed from inside when outside goes very low like -15F.
In a few years or whenever it will be impossible to move heavy pots down the stairs to the cellar, I may have to make a box like temporary winter room inside the garage to reduce power usage for heating.

Baggies and the rooting bins are in bedroom corner and plants moved to living room when a plant does not show drooping leaves once taken from rooting bins.

(Thanks Kerry for correction to 41F from 14F)

Ottawan ,
I guess you mean 41*F not 14*F in your post.

has anyone thought of renting a storage unit unheated and storing them in there?

Garage or shed. Whatever dies back dies back

Seems like it would be cheaper to just buy a small out building or shed to put them in.

I think you need to be careful when doing the "unheated" shed thing.  I stored all my trees in my unheated garage last season and the thing I learned is that it still gets to be less than 20 deg F some nights because it isn't insulated.  The more hardy varieties (Hardy Chicago, RdB, Kadota, Petite Negra, etc...) did ok, no die back, but were also in larger pots and were larger plants in general.  The younger trees I had purchased got smoked, but like I said, were younger, had less extensive root systems, and were in smaller pots.  

This winter, the bigger plants will fine in the garage but some are going to ride it out in the unheated side of my basement (even though my better half probably won't like the space that will take up).  I also have a crawl space on the one side of my house that could be used but I'm afraid of rodent damage, so I'm not sure if i'll try that or not.

Would somebody make a poll on this?

I use a 8x12 insulated shed for winter protection. The price of fifteen or twenty rolls of insulation on sale probably amounts the the cost of one or two expensive trees. I ran an extension cord from the house and set up an oil filled heater for support. Used a "thermo cube outlet" which turns on at 35 and off at 45*. As note eairlier by MydogMike, trees that are young and in smaller pots need little extra care. While larger sized pots may make it thru winter with one or two waterings, the smaller pots with smaller root systems may require a little extra. The only plants I lost last winter were growing in one gallon pots. Lesson learned.

I stored all potted figs in an unheated shed. All of them died before spring came this year, had to start my collection again, and got no figs to taste either. Learned the lesson, got a polycarbonate greenhouse, planning to set it up in a protected place, add some insulation and a heater connected to a thermostat.

I keep mine in the detached/unheated garage. The walls are a stone-like/cinder block construction. It must absorb a certain amount of heat during the day. Gets really cold in there. Desiccating winds must kill as much wood as cold.