I need some help/advice. The only thing i have ever planted are vegetable plants. last spring a co-work gave me a fig tree cutting. Tt was about 6 inches high and had no leaves on it. i repotted it into a five gallon container and gave it a shot of MG fertilizer for tomatoes as that is the only fertilizer I had. It gree very well and i got some very small figs on it but that ws it.My friend told me to expect that and that i would get figs next year. He told me wait until the leaves fell off (I live in upstate New York and my first frost date is around Sept 15th. He said to put the container in my garage away from light which i did and to water it about once a month which i did. This spring i put the container out and gave it the same fertilizer. I am in zone 6b and my last frost date is May 15th. At first nothing seemed to happen. he advised me to check all the branches and to cut a little off the top of each one. if the wood was brown to keep cutting until i reached green which i did and all of a sudden the thing took off. It got so big that I decideed to put it into a 10 gallon container. before long the tree was filled with green figs. in all there are now about 2 and a half dozen very large figs on the plant. I checkeda few website and determined that the figs i had were called Conadria because of their light green color. I also noticed that the figs were very hard and this was now into August. I spoke with someone from Willis Oorchard who told me that the figs should ripen before my last frost date. I also found out that they grow bst in zone 8 and above. two weeks ago I noticed two of the figs were turning a purple color. that week were were hit with heavy rains and when it stopped two of the figs were nice and soft so I picked them and they were very sweet however the rest ofthe figs are still hard and some are starting to turn purple. Is there a chance that the figs will ripen before i get my first frost?? what type of fertilizer should I be using and how much and how often. I know that when my tomaotes do not ripen in time i put them in a brown paper bag in a dark closet and they will turn red. Will the ame thing happen with figs?? I forgot to mention that i plantedthe tree in MG potting soil for containers. I will be heading up to Canada tomorrow morning so if canyone can give me advice before then it would be appreciated. Thanks

I bought a Mission fig tree in NJ last year which originated from Monrovia Nursery. It showed no signs of FMV. Many have speculated that as the trees get older, the symptoms of FMV become less evident. Maybe the trees just need to get beyond some critical milestone and they fight it off. Perhaps some environmental factor (pollution, acid rain, global warming, 9/11, hippy love, Xbox, etc.) has made some trees more susceptible to FMV than others. I have many trees in Houston and the four trees I have in NJ which do not show signs (even recently rooted cuttings) of FMV... not very many of them came from UCD though. I don't know if this means they don't have it, or if they just don't show the signs of it. ~james

Thanks. I live in Sacramento, CA. What I'm looking for is a a twig that I can root, either a brown Turkey fig or a black Mission fig, or a small tree with roots on it that can be sent through the mail in California. I'm sure California doesn't allow fig trees to enter the state of California from outside of California. Since I'm an elderly non-driver, I have no way of taking a bus to a nursery and carrying a heavy tree in the bus, as most nurseries only have big, heavy trees. Any ideas for a solution? So far I didn't see any tiny trees for sale on Craig's list. Just thought I'd ask as I don't have any neighbors around here with fig trees. In the meantime, my 10-inch fig tree is sprouting, but the 2nd tree, the 4 foot one is still bare. I think the clay soil here has a drainage problem. Under the clay is potting soil. I've tried B-1. I'm hoping to find a small bag of compost. So far the big bags in the hardware store here are too heavy for my shopping cart. Thanks for all this great information, folks. Granny Annie

You can wait or do it now. Your only worry is making sure their is enough roots that it comes out whole as not to disturb the growth of the plant. Ripping roots is not too big of a deal as long as it is not too much. If it does not come out whole or seems a bit hard to pull out, I would wait until dormant. There is no harm in waiting.