My purple gage produced a single tart fruit last year, so I decided to germinate it.
After 3 months in the fridge, I planted it on February 1st. It popped up on February 13th.
This photo was taken February 16th
Ok, so now that I have some nice rooted figs, how do I transition them to outside? Can I just harden them off like tomatoes as the weather warms and expect them to keep growing? Or should I expose them to some cool temps on the unheated sun porch? I was going to just move them out in May, but it looks like the buds and twigs are starting to harden off.
An update on my cherry tree cuttings. The bigger one has been pulled and if anything it had one tiny hair root trying to form but I believe it was to far gone to ever make it. I have left the smaller cutting in the hopes that it will come on out…
A week or two on the porch, then a protected spot outdoors. N side of a building for a week or two is good, E is ok. A make-shift cold frame will work too. Direct sun will burn the hell out of the leaves if they have not at least had good window light for a while.
Thanks! They’ve had reasonably good window light. At least enough that they’re not leggy, but little enough that seedlings are leggy if that’s the only light.
Planting before a couple of cloudy days seems to help my plants transition. Obviously the weather doesn’t always cooperate with that, but I can usually find a few cloudy days in the spring during the time frame I want to plant them out.
Here are a couple of photos. It is pretty self-explanatory. I noticed roots pushing through the parafilm, so I am wondering if I can do without the sponges next time. If the parafilm holds enough moisture for the roots to push out into the hydrotom, I could simplify the process. Hydroton does not mold or grow gnats.
An update on my cherry tree cutting. It was a bust 
I pulled the other cutting the other day and no roots. Luckily I dug some sprouts up from my mother in laws old homeplace where her cherry trees came from as sprouts(the ones I had taken cuttings from). I set those out a couple weeks ago and hopefully they take off and grow this year. The cherry pits I put in a container back in November have yet to come up either.
My whole project was to try and get some of these sweet black cherries to my house and that was accomplished as long as the sprouts I set out will make it and grow. So that part of the project, as of now, is a success.
I don’t know if this has been covered . . .
But, is there a proper way to prune young figs, to keep them from being overgrown?
We have one that went nuts - and took over! I have a new one - and want advice on how to ‘train’ it. Thanks.
Figs are tough, prune away! Once somewhat established, you can train them how you like - bush, tree, espalier…
I think once the roots are fully mature, you can lop it back to a scaffold every year. The size of your scaffold would depend on your growing season. You would lose brebas, but the main crop would come sooner. For breba figs, you have to prune ~1/2 of the wood every year. They fruit from last year’s wood, so you devote some of the tree to fruiting, and some of it growing next year’s fruiting branches.
I just took a photo of two Italian Honey figs that I carefully removed from the hydroton. More accurately, I poured off hydroton until they could be pulled out without root damage.
I used “semi-hydroponic” setup from orchid world, plastic soup cups from restaurant with three holes at 1” above bottom, so cup will keep 1” of water. Filled 1.5” with leca, put figs cuttings without parafilm and no any rooting hormone, filled to top with leca, watered. Almost all rooted now and starting to grow! No parafilm, no any plastic to increase moisture; weekly watering with tap water only; average humidity 45% in a basement; low light. I’ll post some pics later.
Have you tried growing figs from seeds?
Yes. I am going to try next time without the plugs, and see if it will root directly. I like how the plug holds the roots together until planting, but I would like to see if the roots will pop through the parafilm.
I like idea with plugs too, immobilizes roots; right now I don’t know how to transplant roots are so brittle. I’ll wait till it becomes heavy root ball (with leca attached)
I have not. I meant seedlings in general get lanky under those light conditions. Sorry for the confusion.
I somewhat forgot about some potted Figs , I had stored for the winter in a pump house , a partially buried ,cinder block building with a gravel floor, high humidity,.
Opened it today to find that they have rooted in mid air !
While they are a few months behind on seeing daylight ,…
My intent was to make air layers from them this year.
Which I have accomplished. !
In only air !
Cutting them off today and potting up
wait, you do realize a sweet cherry growing on its own roots will be a 35ft tall monster. and root sprouts from a grafted cherry wont be the sweet cherry your looking for.
