Well, you can't do anything about the dry fruit now; you can only make it better next year. I would guess... and if you could post photos, we could give you better answers.. that you are underfeeding your trees. You don't say, but I am assuming your trees are planted in the ground; if so, they should be fertilized at least 3 times per year with a good balanced citrus fertilizer; and watered to a depth of 2-3 feet once a week. Citrus generally absorb fertilizer (NPK.. Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium) in the ratio of 5-1-3; so 10-10-10 is okay, but you are wasting money on the P and K, in order to get enough N... the most important single element for citrus. Look for a citrus fert. with something close to the 5-1-3 ratio, apply it according to label instructions, water well, and have faith that the fruit will be better in the next crop.

Sorry for the late reporting. The July 4th holiday schedule in my house was quite crazy. I'm happy to report that my fig tree started to grow again! It was absent for the last 3 months. I have attached a picture showing new buds on all the tips. Terry, thanks for the tip of using sun shade. I actually used this trick when planting a young guava tree, which worked really well. However, the fig tree is facing a canyon, where the wind is very strong. I haven't been able to get the canopy staying in place, but have some other idea to try this weekend. As the old leaves continue to curl and drop, I think I have to try this trick with the watering change. I agree with you on the compost vs. chemical fertilizer. It's quite clear to me now that I'm guilty of over-fertilizing the fig tree, so I stopped doing it except some coffee grounds outside of drip line to amend the soil. BTW, my soil is ph7, very uniform, so not sure if I should use agricultural lime. HD, thanks a lot again for the great tip of coffee grounds. That's a lot of information on coffee grounds from your link! I'm not a coffee drinker, so instead of getting coffee grounds from Starbucks, I've been getting about 1/2 lb daily from my office for more than a week. I actually have a question following your mulching tip. The fig is sitting close to an edge of a slope. I did pull up ground cover and extended the mulch area away from slope, but kind of debating if I should do the same toward slope since ground cover is there to prevent soil erosion from rain. The ground cover seems improved the soil quite a bit. For the places without ground cover, the soil was really dry and barren, while the soil under ground cover were moist and rich. I've found fig roots as far as 2.5-3 feet away from trunk. Do you think I should replace more ground cover with mulch? One thing I don't know is if ground cover will compete with fig on water and nutrients. However, in places where ground cover and fig roots co-exist, the soil is better than those with fig roots alone. I've been using dripping from buckets to better water the tree, which seems to be working well. I also plan to install automatic dripping converting my sprinklers. The challenge I am not able to solve yet is ground cover and fruit trees need to be on two different schedules, but I have only one zone covering that space. Here is a link I found very informative to calculate how much water fruit trees need, which I miscalculated really badly before. I realized that I was giving my fig less than half of what it needs! http://homeorchard.ucdavis.edu/The_Big_Picture/Irrigation/ Bud, your tree is in a much better shape, as it grows really well. My tree after 3 years is less than 5 feet tall. However, I wonder if both of us are guilty of over-fertilizing the tree. From my reading, too much nitrogen during its fruiting time will lead to premature dropping of fruits. Does it apply to your case?

I dropped my figs in a pail of water as I picked them and almost all the ants died and floated to the top. There were a few left but it was easy enough to pick them off as I saw them crawling around. Then I pulled them apart to check for more ants, but didn't find many. I kept an eye on them for a little while to inspect for more ants, but to tell you the truth, the figs are so delicious at that stage of ripeness, I don't mind if I happen to eat an ant or two that failed to crawl out of the fig. Of course, when I start picking them in greater quantities, I can see how it will be a problem. But dropping them in water takes care of the majority of them. I suppose if you let them stay in the water long enough they will all eventually drown. I didn't wait very long, because I was waiting for my breakfast figs! And no, the figs did not get soggy from being in the water.

The containers will probably improve with more steady feeding. Rain and watering leach fertilizer faster from a container than the soil. The one in ground will eventually get nutrients from the mulch as it decomposes but depending on conditions could probably use some extra fertilizer at times to grow well. If the leaves start having problems again take some more pictures. You should also learn about pruning, trees that are weedy and dense are more vulnerable to fungi that attack leaves.