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Subject: Light Diffuser Necessary? Replies: 4
Posted By: dahlt Views: 95
 
The diffuser also serves a safety purpose, protecting the bulb from getting broken (or raining down shards of glass if it does).  Having said that, FiggyFrank is probably right and you can use the extra light more than the protection.

Subject: Has anyone tried the SIPs at Home Depot? Replies: 24
Posted By: dahlt Views: 961
 
Quote:
So with these SIPs, how often do you water?  You are watering from the bottom so how do you gauge when to add more water?  When the soil is dry a couple inches from the top?  When the tree starts to wilt slightly?  I don't want to water log them by adding water too frequently.  Does anyone have a good way to tell when they need more water?


There are two different designs of these pots at Home Depot and they look nearly identical.  The one is basically just a normal pot with a built in saucer and you have to water it from the top.  The other design has a small (1"x2"?) hole towards the bottom where you can add water.  My thinking last year was that if I only ever added water at the bottom, as long as it hadn't rained recently, it would be hard for the soil to draw up enough moisture to get water-logged.  I also would occasionally just dip a finger in to make sure there was water in the reservoir.  The only problem I had was the one time I started filling it with water and a small frog leaped out!  I'm not sure which of us was more startled.

Subject: Nervous about pruning Replies: 7
Posted By: dahlt Views: 224
 
Thank you all for the advice.  At the moment, it's sitting in a 16" pot in an unheated but insulated outbuilding.  I'm not concerned about it surviving what little winter we have left around here.  Eventually, it will probably end up in the ground, if it cooperates.

rcantor, would you recommend waiting until I start seeing actual leaves to prune or just the buds swelling?

Subject: Nervous about pruning Replies: 7
Posted By: dahlt Views: 224
 
My Royal Vineyard has now survived it's second year in my care but is a straight, 5ft tall stick.  I know that I need to prune off part of the top to force it to branch out, but I'm nervous because, if I go down ~6-8" so that I have enough for a cutting (as insurance), I'll have taken half of the leaf buds from the plant.  In the photo below, the yellow line is where I would cut and you can see just about all of the buds on the tree in this photo.  The 3ft below the photo only have old leaf scars, no buds.  Am I headed in the right direction here?  Any words of wisdom?
RoyalVineyard_2016-02-09.jpg

Subject: Rewetting Moss? Replies: 10
Posted By: dahlt Views: 422
 
Last week I put a bunch of cuttings in a shoe box layered with sphagnum that I had squeezed the water out of.  I just opened up the box and saw that some of the moss has dried out.  How would people recommend re-wetting it?  Misting?  Just pour some in?  Take it all out (checking the cuttings for signs of roots and/or problems) and wet/squeeze again before repacking?

Subject: Expanded rooting setup Replies: 39
Posted By: dahlt Views: 1,931
 
I wonder how much draping some clear plastic sheeting over the pots (maybe with some supports attached to the frames) would help out with the drying out.  It should help to keep the humidity up and limit the evaporation.  It wouldn't make it any easier to water, though.  Those frames look pretty nice, too. 

Subject: Cuttings to Share Replies: 107
Posted By: dahlt Views: 5,039
 
My package showed up last week and I finally had the opportunity to open it tonight.  I really appreciate your generosity (and the effort that must have gone into packaging up all of those cuttings), Dan.

Now I just need to root them all...

Subject: Please Update Your cutting wish list Replies: 79
Posted By: dahlt Views: 2,355
 
Well, that's one way to guarantee that we all have a current wish list set up.  I know I just went and put mine in my signature block.

Subject: Cuttings to Share Replies: 107
Posted By: dahlt Views: 5,039
 
Quote:
I also have some plants to give away if you can make it here in the next week or so.


Oh, sure, two months after I leave SE Michigan!  I guess I'll just have to keep an eye out for next week's cuttings offering.

Subject: First (almost) ripe fig Replies: 3
Posted By: dahlt Views: 345
 
Well, I probably won't have access to a patch of ground for planting until at least December, so it will probably stay in a pot until next spring.  Maybe I'll trying moving it to a bigger pot this coming weekend (and check on how viable some of those suckers might be on their own).

Subject: First (almost) ripe fig Replies: 3
Posted By: dahlt Views: 345
 
After moving >900 miles (from Zone 6a to 8a, where the figs can grow in the ground with little fear), the one fig on my little Black Mission survived and was almost ripe when my daughter came in to tell me she bumped it and it fell off.  I sliced it open anyway and tasted it.  The ripe, inner portion was quite good and I can definitely see the promise.  Hopefully, next year, in its new climate, it will be more productive and I'll get to taste fully ripe ones.
20140923_0635351.jpg 
On a related note, if anyone has suggestions on how and when I should trim up the suckers at the base (especially if I want to propagate a few new trees), I'm all ears.
20140921_0800351.jpg 

My Royal Vineyard that I started from a cutting back in March also survived the trip, but it's young enough to have avoided any fruit-based drama.
     -T 

Subject: OT - Morels, anyone? Replies: 30
Posted By: dahlt Views: 1,142
 
My house sits in a former apple orchard and we still have 20 or so trees.  I typically harvest several handfuls a year.  It's been such a long winter that the apples haven't even started blooming.  I probably have at least a few more weeks before I need to keep an eye out for the morels.

Subject: does anyone keep fig journal? Replies: 23
Posted By: dahlt Views: 701
 
Interesting that this came up.  I've been thinking about starting one for myself, since this is my first year trying to root cuttings.  I'm leaning towards OneNote, especially since I can take pictures with my phone and load them right in using the mobile app.

It's nice to see what some people are putting in so I don't kick myself a few years down the road for not including  something that didn't seem important to a newbie.
     -Travis

Subject: Olympian Replies: 139
Posted By: dahlt Views: 9,883
 
Unfortunately, the original linked story has disappeared.  Does anyone have any more details about it's discovery/development?
I'm quite interested in this one, since I'm from Olympia originally (and it was the first place I remember seeing a fig tree growing in someone's yard in the U.S.).
     -Travis

Subject: Encanto Farms Fig Cuttings 2014 Replies: 577
Posted By: dahlt Views: 30,740
 
My cuttings showed up yesterday as well.  A big thank you to Jon and the U.S. Postal Service!  I had been busy trying to come up with a plan in case they didn't show up until I was out of town and the temperature was supposed to dip into the single digits.
   -Travis

Subject: Encanto Farms Fig Cuttings 2014 Replies: 577
Posted By: dahlt Views: 30,740
 
I also got an order confirmation email last night.  I'm pretty happy because I missed the first order, but got 4 out of the 5  I asked for:

087 B           Royal Vineyard RM
539 C           Sal's (2) 2306
637 B           Violette de Bordeaux UC (2) -  1 pc
700 A           Adriatic JH (2) 2011  - 1 pc

Missed out on the Hardy Chicago, but I'll still have plenty to work with in my first attempt to root cuttings.  Now I'm just going to spend my time nervously watching the outside temperatures and mailbox/doorstep until the cuttings actually show up here in my unusually cold Zone 6b.
     -Travis