Thank you!
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Had a handful of Box of Rains ripen on a couple first year trees in compost socks. Not the sweetest but the taste is really unique and memorable.
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WOW! Dark ostiole…
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Full sun, assuming they are not already adjusted to darkness. They are prone to damping off before they have 3-4 true leaves so I left this year’s on the heat mat in germination trays longer before spotting them out to flats and hardly lost any.
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Wow! How old are those? This is my first attempt, and I have no idea when it will be a good time to separate these. Do you notice mines aren’t “very” green?
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I started them in early March. You can probably separate them when they get 4 true leaves, or wait until they are getting crowded, would probably be a good idea to put them in part shade for a while at that point if it is hot. They are pretty tough though.
My plants from last year have been covered with 2 layers of black ground cover and started growing so they are really pale and stretched out, I took one layer off and pulled the other up on one side to let some light in, will probably uncover and spray with surround sometime next week. I had the same thing happen on a smaller patch and just uncovered them and they did OK, the sun is getting stronger though and it would be a shame to cook all of these.
They have really bushed out under there, gonna need some attention.
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The seedlings adjusted fine. Voles got a handful, frost got the tops that were pressed against the cover.
Added another row, 2 plants per foot, will plant a row of sorbet swirl watermelons in between. And the original seedling patch got razed this spring so I’m going to fill that in with high density seedlings as well.
Started moving up the precocious selections to compost socks. Sewing machine is on the fritz so I’m using the upsocker contraption I built. Used straight, unsifted biochar this year for rooting and it did pretty good, had a bunch rot but think I got at least one of each to root.
And a reminder that working on figs when it is hot and sunny is best avoided. When thinning last year’s seedlings I thought I should be OK without long sleeves and gloves as long as I scrubbed up every hour, and that was fine when it was overcast. One day last week though the sun was very bright so it took less than an hour for the reaction to happen, it is not so bad except for when I want to grab something out of my pockets 
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Had a couple brebas from number nine. Quite big, thick rind, some syrup, faint cinnamon like flavor. I know brebas are not a good judge of ripening time, but it seems late. Most likely will discard it.
A bunch of last year’s seedlings have set fruit, if they are very early there is a chance they will have time to ripen.
Found one growth completely covered in SLF, weird.
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Got started thinning today to give the figs that have set the best chance to develop, and bring web blight under control.
Looks like there are a few obvious smyrnas this go around, which are starting to drop.
Maybe a third have set figs so far in the row I thinned, which are all Florea and MBVS crosses. Not sure yet if there will be a meaningful difference in precociousness by mother, but last year this row had the most figs.
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Wow! That is amazing work that ur doing with figs…u made me feel like a slacker. 
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Hopefully it pays off. I don’t baby my figs like a lot of people do, and have had more than my fair share of disappointments and failures figuring out which things I can slack on. I think the real key is just being persistent 
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Love following this! Thank you for updating.
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Had first ripe figs from Box of Rain and number 12, along with a Barnisotte that started ripening the same day.
Number 12 is a surprise, the flavor has been similar to RdB, seems like it might do better in the rain though, but it has the same problem as RdB of not setting many figs, at least they are bigger! Going to keep it around anyhow.
Box of Rain was almost tart, enjoyable and unique.
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Rain resistance is of great importance for sure! Glad you’ve found something promising. The insides look very syrupy 
The past 2 weeks of rain even resulted in mold growing on the figs that didn’t split at my house!
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The exterior mold is something I’d like to select for as well. Not sure if I can have both, thick skins that resist mold seem more prone to splitting. Hopefully there’s more to it than just thick and thin and I can get the best of both worlds.
I did pick those just at tree ripe and stored them for about 4 days in the fridge, so they ripened a bit more and could have instead molded outside with the dew and bugs.
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First ripe figs from the second generation. This was the first to set fruit this year, I forget exactly when but it started ripening sooner than I expected and I almost missed them. Unknown Pastiliere mother, I forget which caprifig at the moment.
There’s a bunch more figs so hopefully I will get to taste it soon. Hopefully it does not drop like it’s mother, was thinking about whether there could be some other genes involved that could be passed from the seed parent. Officially there is only one gene that controls persistence and it is only passed by the pollen parent, but since I didn’t get 50% drop in the first generation I have wondered if that is correct…
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Had a few more ripen. Small, lightweight, kinda weird looking so far, tasty enough. Moves on to the next round.
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Had a handful of ripe figs from the main field.
This is a MBVS crossed with Jack Straw. Maybe the most hopeful yet, etna type outer appearance with a Gludi type taste and interior.
2 different Unknown Pastiliere crossed with The Other One. The first had a berry flavor, not very distinct. The second has that lingering cinnamon like tanginess, not particularly strong though and had some syrup developing.
And the last was a thorough disappointment. It set more fruit than any other tree, but they ripened tiny and we’re insipid. A Florea crossed with the Other One.
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Had a few more ripen, there have been 3 light frosts so far, the first on September 20 so the trees are shutting down, maybe not the best time to judge but good to know more that don’t require pollination.
A florea cross, blah…
I think this one is from unknown pastilierre, don’t have my planting map handy… It was good, small but flavorful and sweet.
And a Florea cross again, better flavor than the other.
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