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Hi all, I joined this forum and Figs4Fun in late October. (sorry for the duplication for those who visit both sites)
My paying job is in healthcare IT, but I have always loved growing things. Get it honestly from the grandmothers on both sides of my family. I’ve owned three trees from Joe Morle for a few years. 2016 season they were fairly productive and large enough to take cuttings. I was searching the web for info on rooting cuttings and found a wealth of info on both forums so joined. Now I know why it took me several years to get good growth on my trees, I was fig ignorant!
Well, after devouring a lot of posts and partaking of several cuttings sales and offerings, I now have a total of 84 cuttings rooting. Started 85, lost 1 Brunswick to rot. All others appear to be doing well. I know enough to know some could still go south, so won’t say successful until they are up-potted and growing well there.
After digesting the wealth of knowledge and opinions on rooting cuttings, I choose the ThreeFoldFarm method of direct potting in tree pots (with some modifications). I ordered a 16 pack of tree pots and ProMix BX from Greenhouse Megastore because I was only going to root my tree cuttings and a few more from forum members. Ha! That plan didn’t last long so I ended up supplementing the tree pots with 24 oz clear cups from Amazon and used cheap Styrofoam cups from the grocery store to block light for the future roots.
All the cuttings were cleaned with antibacterial soap, labeled with a paint pen and wrapped in parafilm to prevent desiccation while rooting. I got a moisture meter because I knew I would mother hen the cuttings and likely overwater. I’ve rarely watered the cuttings, but when I do, I water with 1:3 hydrogen peroxide:water with dilute liquid MG fertilizer that I have on hand for my orchids (8-7-6). I have seen a few fungus gnats so powdered some mosquito dunks to add to the soil and laid some fly strips around. This and the hydrogen peroxide appear to have taken care of them.
To help with humidity when it’s cold and the furnace kicks on a lot, I’ve placed a room humidifier in the fig nursery (aka my breakfast nook). It appears to have created a good microclimate cause the leaves look happy. I chose not to add heat mats. The house temp (68-70) seems to be working fine. My grow lights are likely not adequate since I planned them for the 16 tree pots. But I’ll see how this season goes before I invest in anything else. Maybe next year I won’t go hog wild with the cuttings (yah right)
Since I will likely be up-potting long before I can put the figs outside, I have a contingency plan to use my master bath jaccuzi to house the pots until they can go outside. It is Huge and I rarely use it. It’s in a corner with 2 large windows that face North and West so light is filtered and good in there. Also one of the extra bathtubs that has a South facing window. Hey, it’s all about using what ya got! Yes I have a couple showers that we can use so we can still get clean. We can have our figs and clean bodies too!
My goal is getting a lot of growth and as many new figs to try as I can on these new trees, space be [email protected], so bring on the growth!
Here are some pictures of my fig nursery.
Figlets on several cuttings (yea I know I need to take them off. Give me time)
Rooting winner is Des Roig Manyo
LSU Purple
Salce
My paying job is in healthcare IT, but I have always loved growing things. Get it honestly from the grandmothers on both sides of my family. I’ve owned three trees from Joe Morle for a few years. 2016 season they were fairly productive and large enough to take cuttings. I was searching the web for info on rooting cuttings and found a wealth of info on both forums so joined. Now I know why it took me several years to get good growth on my trees, I was fig ignorant!
Well, after devouring a lot of posts and partaking of several cuttings sales and offerings, I now have a total of 84 cuttings rooting. Started 85, lost 1 Brunswick to rot. All others appear to be doing well. I know enough to know some could still go south, so won’t say successful until they are up-potted and growing well there.
After digesting the wealth of knowledge and opinions on rooting cuttings, I choose the ThreeFoldFarm method of direct potting in tree pots (with some modifications). I ordered a 16 pack of tree pots and ProMix BX from Greenhouse Megastore because I was only going to root my tree cuttings and a few more from forum members. Ha! That plan didn’t last long so I ended up supplementing the tree pots with 24 oz clear cups from Amazon and used cheap Styrofoam cups from the grocery store to block light for the future roots.
All the cuttings were cleaned with antibacterial soap, labeled with a paint pen and wrapped in parafilm to prevent desiccation while rooting. I got a moisture meter because I knew I would mother hen the cuttings and likely overwater. I’ve rarely watered the cuttings, but when I do, I water with 1:3 hydrogen peroxide:water with dilute liquid MG fertilizer that I have on hand for my orchids (8-7-6). I have seen a few fungus gnats so powdered some mosquito dunks to add to the soil and laid some fly strips around. This and the hydrogen peroxide appear to have taken care of them.
To help with humidity when it’s cold and the furnace kicks on a lot, I’ve placed a room humidifier in the fig nursery (aka my breakfast nook). It appears to have created a good microclimate cause the leaves look happy. I chose not to add heat mats. The house temp (68-70) seems to be working fine. My grow lights are likely not adequate since I planned them for the 16 tree pots. But I’ll see how this season goes before I invest in anything else. Maybe next year I won’t go hog wild with the cuttings (yah right)
Since I will likely be up-potting long before I can put the figs outside, I have a contingency plan to use my master bath jaccuzi to house the pots until they can go outside. It is Huge and I rarely use it. It’s in a corner with 2 large windows that face North and West so light is filtered and good in there. Also one of the extra bathtubs that has a South facing window. Hey, it’s all about using what ya got! Yes I have a couple showers that we can use so we can still get clean. We can have our figs and clean bodies too!
My goal is getting a lot of growth and as many new figs to try as I can on these new trees, space be [email protected], so bring on the growth!
Here are some pictures of my fig nursery.
Figlets on several cuttings (yea I know I need to take them off. Give me time)
Rooting winner is Des Roig Manyo
LSU Purple
Salce
Interesting enough, both Qalaat al Madiq cuttings have a fig. Will be great to see if they are that vigorous later this year.
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