Hi Brian- Glad to give you any help that I can. I would guess that your culture is off on the "BM" but....you're treating all your other trees the same way and they produce figs. So I'm a little bit more than confused. I still would not add any extra acidity to any of the figs that you grow, successfully, of not. Add some limestone and see if the quality/flavor of your figs improves. ESPOMA, IRON-TONE is a good organic, fertilizer, but I use this in early spring supplemented with dilute tonics of soluble fertilizers like Miracle-Gro. The 5-1-1 mix is a very good mix. So is the quick-draining, gritty mix, but finding the Pine Bark Fines is difficult, and the substituted, "Repti-Bark" that I buy in large pet-supply stores, is very expensive. What ever you decide to use must drain quickly, when used for containerized fig trees. Water should pour right through the mix. This will wash away salt and toxin build-ups, and force in a new charge of fresh air/oxygen, into the root zone, which is essential, or the roots will rot. I am still using a quick-draining mix and the results have been excellent. I'm not trying to rub it in, but earlier this spring, I planted a 6" sucker into the quick-draining mix, watered it with very dilute tonic of 24-8-16 Miracle-Gro (1-Tbs./5 gallons water with every watering)....and the tree is now close to 4 ft. tall and is sprouting figlets. (Note: I did this because I wanted as much growth as possible, and, not fig production). Sorry to bring this up, but for all the years that you have been growing your questionable tree, the growth should be more robust and not so weak and wiry. Something here, does not look right. There should be healthier-looking growth, and surely, branches sprouting some figs by now. What are we missing? There's another possibility to consider. And it is remote, at best. You may have a dud tree. Many times, lousy, profit-hungry, wholesalers will start figs from seeds and then sell these resulting trees to retailers. Retailers then label the trees. Your tree may never produce figs, or, will produce lousy-tasting figs if it started as a seed-grown "BM". However, if your nursery source is reliable, I'd forget what you just read, and concentrate on cultural problems with your tree. I'm running out of ideas. I see in the above photo that the pot you are using is only half full of mix. That means if the pot holds X-gallons of mix, the tree is growing in half that amount and will quickly become root-bound all over again. Containerized tree should be growing in a minimum 15-18 gallons of mix...unless you want to root-prune and repot very often. Small-volume containers dry out and heat up very quickly. This stresses the roots and leads to poor growth. Stressed trees could also suddenly abort figs. A vigorously growing tree, would fill that pot full of roots in one season, and then stop growing. Trees are handicapped when grown in containers that are too small. Pruning of fig trees is usually done as buds begin to swell and as trees break dormancy. March/early-April, usually. If you decide to prune away all the extra growth do wait until the tree enters full dormancy. As the weather begins cooling off, all those extra leaves on that extra growth will be sending reserved food to the roots, and the stored food is needed for the flush of new growth, next season. Why cut off the food supply to the roots by pruning now? However, if this growth is diseased, or, unhealthy, then chop it out. Otherwise leave it growing for now. Brian....every instinct that I have tells me your problems are cultural. Personally, as a Plan-B...I would order a few tissue-cultured, virus-free "Black Mission" trees from either Florida Hill, or Wellspring Gardens. In the time that it will take you to nurse that tree into better health, you could start over from scratch with healthy, vigorous trees, that will give you figs in 2-3 years, if not sooner. Granted the trees are tiny, but they can grow fast. I ordered me some tissue-cultured trees just a few months back, and the growth has almost quadrupled over the last few months. I had a terribly cold spring here in NYC, but the tiny fig trees still managed to put on some tremendous growth. I'm growing "BM" and also, "Olympian"....and I'll bet the tissue-cultured Olympian trees will start pushing figs next year. My fig trees have to put out, or, they're gone. I do hope you find a happy end to your fig problems. Frank This post was edited by BronxFigs on Wed, Jul 16, 14 at 10:24

Well I had to wait till today to get 2 of each. These cultivars are not the largest,insignificant,as comercial,cold Hardiness ?,Not very early,YET:They satisfy best my taste buds. Hope in being succesfull in growing them here forever. Blue Celeste still tends to drop some fruits,but i will keep it any way. Top:Vista Mission,Right:Blue Celeste,Left:Violette de Bordeaux

Dan Tomatoes look okay. lol That is because I always grow them in pots to avoid soil diseases. Okra the same, I have it in small pot since we only eat it sometimes. All the figs that I have ever owned were pretty much care free, till I came here and I got what I believe a bad variety or maybe just a bad tree. I am going to fix that with all the advice I got here in this forum. Dan, I will be very interested about the heirloom figs that you talked about...keep us posted. Sal The variety that I remember from my childhood is probably going to be very hard to find it, since I don't know what it is. My father always had rare plants in the garden, we had a huge fig tree that gave many crops and had big purple figs, pink inside. We ate them sometimes green and candied. In the morning, when I got up I had figs for breakfast... I have raised beds growing veggies now with no signs of problems, and fruit trees are in the ground. The ones that have to be protected during a freeze are in containers where I can move them around. When I take down the Brown Turkey fig, I am going to look at the roots and see what I find. It is kind of big considering is only 2 years old. And has fruit that did not ripen, they are still green. Silvia

Remember that figs thrive on having their roots greatly confined. In Italy and Greece (and Spain too, I'm advised, these trees grow out of rock faces, old walls and vertical drops without any semblance of soil at all - and are full of fruit. I used to live in Aldershot, Hampshire, (Area 8b) and we had a SW facing rear garden. I planted a fig up against the wall, facing the sun, and as it was right next to, and overlooking the Patio, we dug the hole deep. put a whole patio paving slab in the bottom, layered with flint rocks, then three other vertical slabs forming the 3 sides of a 'box' (the house wall providing the 4th. Filled in with good compost mixed with a lot of gravel, planted the ('Brown Turkey) fig. And waited. 3 years later, the top leaves were brushing the roof guttering, and we gathered 4 lbs of figs. (The fig also fruited in year 2 &3, but not as abundantly.) year 5, a heavy late frost wiped out a lot of the fruits, but we still got quite a few. If you give a fig unrestricted growth, it will focus on leaf and not fruit production.