My neighbor has told me, many times, how cute the squirrels look sitting on the fence eating the figs from my trees.

Could you give more information (or preferably post a picture of your leaves)? Several things can cause the leaves to fall off. Here are example of sunburnt leaves:

woodmanca, I'm from San Francisco too, and started growing figs this year. I collect numerous kinds, but mostly varieties that need less heat to ripen fruit.

I beleive mission needs more heat to ripen fruit that what we have. I've visited someone down in the mission district who has a huge mission fig tree at least 15 years old. And they tell me that they rarely get any sweet ripe mission figs. Most of them are bland, and the birds get to them quick.

Just curious, has the mission fig ever ripen for you in the past in San Francisco?

Squirrels will eat your figs. But birds are also a nightmare, especially for dark color figs. Two weeks ago, just before my 1st Osborne Prolific fig was changing color to half-purple, the birds started pecking on it, and left lots of peck marks on the fruit. I was curious to see if the fig was really ripe, and why the bird chose it, so I washed the fig, and ate the remaining fig. The fig at that point was not even close to ripe. It tasted very bland, and had no sweetness. If I left it to ripen in another 5 days there might have been some flavor. After that, I started covering my figs with zip-lock bags with lots of small holes punched in them so the figs do not rot. This worked great. I was able to let the figs ripen, and try them at the best instead of having to race the birds to them, and settling for figs that weren't fully ripe.

Just tried a Desert King fig that just ripened 1 week ago. It was big and juicy. I also tried 3 Osbourne Prolific Fig for the first time about 2 weeks ago. It was good too.

I also have an Excell fig tree that is big. I bought a big tree because I was impatient. I heard Excell works for SF. I'll find out this year. The excell fig tree is loaded with lots of medium sized fruit, but they aren't ripening yet. I think maybe I can get those by September? Maybe?

Will report back.

The bird issue in Houston was particularly bad. I ate my first fig on 05.14. The birds got everything else whether it was brown, purple, yellow, or green... even when they were many days away from being ripe until 06.26.

I too tried using zip-lock bags. I didn't fair as well as Jonathan did. The birds managed to pull off about 50% of the bags and eat the fruit. Having tried most methods, I think the best solution is to net the trees.

bag pulled aside:

bag missing:

bjs496, I'm really surprised the zip lock bag trick didn't work. I'm thinking maybe the birds on your area are bigger, stronger, and smarter than the birds in San Francisco. Either that or their motivation in SF is lower, since they haven't learned to aquire a taste for figs, since not many people grow figs here due to the mild summer climate.

I tried the scare crows, the fake owls, the fake snake. It does not work! I get peck marks. I beleive they come from the sparrows. Apparently sparrows aren't strong enough to remove the plastic bags, so I'm in luck. I got blue jays and robins here in my backyard too.

So far the bag method has worked super well for me.

Part of my issue was the figs had a very short stem and neck, so it was difficult to get the bag snug around the fig. They did, however, get through to the figs that were otherwise secure. I have some TX EB and Fanick's BG ripening. They both have a longish stem. I think I'll try them again.