Happy New Year and Happy Birthday Martin.

My wife and I went in a different direction than usual on our daily walk and wouldn't you know it.....we walked by a house with a large fig tree (still had figs on it), and best of all, the owner was outside working in his garden.

He says it's a very sweet dark fig that he got from Cuba many years ago....doesn't know the name...and is going to give me some of the several new shoots growing out of the ground at it's base.

So....my hope for the new year is that this new (to me) fig will prove a fruitful addition to my small but growing collection.

And while on the subject.....since it rarely freezes here....should I plant in the ground right now (they are healthy looking with big leaves on them and are about a foot tall), or pot them and keep them indoors till March or so?

We rarely get frost here....and from July thru September temps average over 100.

(Sorry if I hijacked your thread).

Hello Martin! Happy New Year! My hopes for 2010 is to get the following fig trees to grow and produce fruit; Black Maderia, Strawberry, Green Greek, Sal's Corelone, and Marseilles VS. Most of my trees are small but I purchased a bunch of air pots and thinking my figs will develop stronger and better roots using these pots. I know I may have to water them daily but I plan on adding more spag moss to my soil mixture. Hopefully this will provide additional moisture and cut down on my watering. I also hope to use my moisture meter more this year. I started using one on my trees inside my greenhouse and garage trees. The moisture meter works great! cheers, Dennis

I just hope things go as well as they did in 2009!

What happened end of fall 2008 my mother and I were talking about my brother trying to duplicate my Grandmother's cucidati recipe. Topic drifted to Her Brother in law's family and the figs they grew. This was about the late 1930s to early 1940s for her and the 1950s for me. They sold that ranch but before it was converted into track home my two uncles took some cuttings and tried to root them. My mom's main complaint was they never got any cutting for her and my Uncle couldn't remember the variety of fig other then it wasn't Mission.

One day when I stopped for gas I saw a huge couple of fig trees growing wild next to a culvert. I grabbed a bag of figs and took them to my Mom's house and she made fig ice cream. Next trip I brought some pruning shears and took several cuttings which she then rooted.

I also bought several fig trees [Kadota, Mission, Brown Turkey] and some Italian Honey fig and Brown Turkey cuttings. => about nine trees after the cuttings rooted.

So my mom started thinking about the fig tree my late grandfather planted in the back yard of a house we lived in until ~1962. We never knew the name so, seems to be about eight figs that go by Italian Honey fig, so I got a Latterula. I picked up two Genoa and gave one to my Brother for Xmas. It is so hard to make good cookies with the dried figs you get in stores.

I got two more cuttings from other road side figs and sent away for a Brunswick. The Brunswick was only a gallon size when we got it but grew like mad and produced a good crop this year.

This fall I decided to give myself a "bare root" Tiger fig just for a change of pace. Little more then a stick with a ball of dirt on one end but heck, it was only $20.

The punch line is there was no fig ice cream this year and another year of store bought, dry, tasteless, figs going into cookies. Both my Mom and I hogged down the figs as quick as they ripened!

Kind of cool in that even though we were a farming family we stuck with crops like apricots, cherries, and prunes for some reason. It was like we identified ourselves with those crops and figs except for the one in our backyard, was something somebody else did. We kind of had a breakthrough this summer.

Rick

I'm hoping to add a couple varieties to my single plant grown from a cutting last spring. I'm hoping it returns after being planted in the ground in July. The parent tree is a very old one that gets no protection and is currently being gobbled up by Carolina Jasmine. I can't wait to taste the figs I know are very delicious from this plant.

Happy New Year to All,

I am just hoping to successfully root my cuttings that I am working on and hopefully plant a fig in my back yard on a south wall, that has good protection.Can't wait to get started.

Richard

Well Martin one thing for sure that I'm looking forward to is the growing of my "Martin's Unknown" cuttings into trees. I'm having a good start if only I can follow through. Check out the picture below.

The next thing I'm looking forward to is the continued friendships I'm building here. You are a great bunch of figgers who have opened your hearts and minds to the world. May we all have many happy returns this coming year, and I might add, plenty of figs.

From the bayou,
"gene"

Thanks Wabikeguy i soon will be another season older along with my fig plants !
The posters its nice to read your hopes for the up coming season , 1 of my hopes is good weather unlike last season my other hopes well i have a lot of them But mostly concerning my new plants making it thru winter storage and seeing them start to produce figs in there 2nd season. My mature plants will carry on as usual.
Also a belated Happy New Year to all and i as always look forward to seeing many fig plant pictures from the members.
Best Health
Martin

I have hope this year for all of my fig trees-

Desert King, grew amazingly fast last year, that was it's 2nd year from cutting stage. It's shrubby with lots of 1-year stems, so I hope it has lost of figs, for the first time. Maybe in July?

Lattarula, also nice and bushy this year, so I hope for lots of either breba or main crop - last year it had several sweet yellow-green figs, almost white center, main crop in Sept.

Hardy Chicago, last year was my star performer, I hope for the same, most are in Sept but maybe a few breba mid summer.

Petite negri, last year bore almost all main crop, some too late to ripen in the Pacific Northwest (November). We'll see.

My "found" fig variety, a Brunswick-like brown outside honey-colored inside, which I called "Vancouver" for it's origin, has finger-like leaves, last year had a meager breba and slightly less meager main crop. This tree is 8 years old. This year I hope it has many big juicy sweet figs. Some of the last figs became moldy in November - I'm considering some sort of rain-cover this year if it reaches that point. Maybe a sheet of plastic over the tree, held by clothespins. I keep all of my trees under 8 feet tall.

I have a tiny Sals, almost accidental. THe cutting didn't grow at all the first year, I stuck it into the tomato patch, and the second year it grew about 3 leaves. Now it's a whopping 1 foot tall and has a breba fig. I plan to keep this one containerized. I hope for a chance to eat that one fig.

My goal is to get a bunch of figs from my larger Smith, and LSU gold, and to get at least a few to try from my smaller, Black Madeira, Kathleen's Black, Verte, Barnisotte, Mary lane seedless, LSU purple, and Marseilles Black. Then I am hoping to get at least one of each cutting I ordered from UCD and Figs 4 Fun to make it from a cutting to an actual plant. So far everything looks to be on track.

I have three tiny figs living on my condo balcony. One is two years old (Adriatic), the other one year (from my dad), and the third was just rooted (found it growing under my father-in-law's fence). This year I hope to get maybe three figs or so from the oldest which gave me one fig last year.

But my biggest hope for this year is to buy a home that will give my figs the space they need (and a host of other plants!). The are quite small from residing in small pots and not getting full sun. They'd love to be able to stretch their roots!

My hopes for this year? I'm moving and hope to plant several of my older figs in ground and not have the squirrels eat them. I'm going to have to figure out a big wire cage or something. I need to keep the gophers away too.

Sue

I'm hoping to determine the differences in the fruiting characteristics (if any) of the LSU Improved Celeste and O'Rourke cultivars......and help clarify if they are the same or different cultivars. I have located a large palmate-leaved O'Rourke fig tree that is growing next to a large LSU Improved Celeste tree which has a completely different leaf pattern. Time will tell.......

I hoping to get more sugar content data on the figs that I grow......and anxiously await the tasting of some new varieties this year.

Dan

I'm just hoping to get some figs this year.

My hopes are pretty simple this year and mirror those of many or the previous posters.

1. Warm weather.
2. Ripe figs
3. Meet some of you forum members.

C.J.

hmmmn, I hope to sort out the ones that I want to keep from the rest and trial MORE. Thanks to the many fig friends for sharing their treasured variants. Happy days coming when my figs can go out from the garage.

For 2010 I hope to see my 4 little fig trees grow nicely for me, and I hope the 4 Celeste I am rooting will also develop into nice little trees too.

Now my dreams, that's quite a different story...I dream of one day having one of Herman's cold hardy fig trees, but the other guys are always the high rollers.

My plans are to share some of my trees with other fig-loving members of my family.

Mary