The Fig Collection

I have always been a great fan of figs. Recently when overseas in France I would visit the market twice a week and proceed to eat two whole punnets of figs, in a single day.

It was great.

Once picked, figs do not ripen any more, and spoil very quickly. Figs when fully ripe are very soft and difficult to transport in-tact and this means that, sadly, figs are often picked a little too early for market, before they reach the maximum sweetness, and depth of flavour you can get leaving it on the tree until fully ripe.

I find fig trees themselves quite an attractive plant, with large lobed leaves, often with varied shapes. When disturbed or crushed, fig leaves also give off a beautiful aroma, sweet and figgy.

I grow the majority of my figs in a soil-less mix, and as of yet they are all quite young and unimpressive, but as they grow quite quickly they should begin to look more respectable as Spring rolls round again.


Brown Turkey

The Brown Turkey is common variety fig, not only in Australia but throughout the world. In most nurseries you come across in Australia this will be the variety stocked. Brown Turkey figs are hardy trees and form small to medium size figs that are rich and sweet. Brown Turkey figs produce a breba crop on last seasons wood in summer, and a main crop in Autumn on new growth.

My Brown Turkey has had very slow growth since re-potting in January. In the last two weeks it has begun to wake up a little, and I think I may have been under-watering.









White Adriatic

White Adriatic is a fig originally coming from the Mediterranean. White Adriatic figs form one or two crops and have pale green-yellow skin turning pale to almost white as they mature.

White Adriatic figs are meant to be particularly sweet and rich, good for jams and drying.

Like the Brown Turkey, my White Adriatic has had fairly slow growth, probably due to under-watering. In the last two weeks with extra water it has began to put out its first growth since I purchased it in January.





Black Genoa

The Black Genoa is a variety that is uncommon outside of Australia. It is a quick growing tree with medium sized sweet fruit. It is the second most common variety you will see in the average Australian nursery. It is often used as a commercial fruit here as it is prolific and easy growing with relatively hardy fruit.

My Black Genoa is the fastest growing of my container figs, putting out some sucker growth and several leaves. 




Yellow Excell

The Yellow Excell is the newest of my plants, and I stumbled upon it at Bunnings one afternoon. I have not previously seen this variety in nurseries. Excell figs ripen to a yellow colour, and are reportedly extremely sweet, rich and excellent for drying and making jams. I am looking forward to tasting this fig, probably next year.

This plant was hidden right up the back of the fruit trees at Bunnings, and was in fairly bad shape when I picked it up. Since purchasing from Bunnings two weeks ago, it has dropped a few leaves since being re-potted, and in the last week some of the buds have begun to swell, so I am hoping it will put out a little bit of growth before winter dormancy.






Mystery Figs

In previous posts you have met my latest fig cuttings, taken from a tree between Canberra and Orange, and today they sit, still looking fairly lifeless, with only a hint of a green flush in the buds waiting to put forward some leaves.

Back in December I took another random cutting from a large tree overhanging a fence in my suburb. It kind of sat there looking quite sad and unhappy with life all through January, and then in February it began to put out some leaves. Today I have great expectations for this plant, especially after re-visiting the donor fig and finding it covered in small dark figs, with a deep red interior.

Picture on the left taken at the end of Feb




Picture on the right taken mid-March

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Fig Cutting Update

A few days ago, in my first post, I talked about how I propagated some green fig cuttings using the shoebox method.

The cuttings were removed from the shoebox with varying degrees of roots. Here is what they looked like on removal, six days ago.

I planted these cuttings into four containers, three into clear plastic party cups, and the one with the most roots into a 1.9L pot as the roots were too high up the stem to fit into the cups. Although we can't see into the pot, we can observe the progress of the roots in the cups very easily, and here is what six days growth looks like;

As of yet, there is no top growth, but I believe I shall see some leaves appear in the next week.

The mixture these cuttings are now growing in is approximately; One half part of the original propagating mix from the shoebox, and one half equal mix of pine bark fines and coarse perlite. I also added a small amount of sphagnum peat moss.

I intend to put all of these cuttings into proper pots tonight or tomorrow.

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How to Root Green Fig Cuttings

Hi all!

I am new to the blogging world, and would love to share my experiences growing in Canberra Australia.

For my first post I would like to share how I successfully rooted four green fig cuttings that I recently took from a tree I came across on the way to Orange NSW.

Here are a two pictures of the donor tree. I choose this particular tree because it was quite laden with fruit, appeared totally wild and was extremely healthy despite any apparent human assistance. I am yet to taste the fruit, but will be returning in April and hope some fresh figs will be ripe then so I know what I am in for!

Fig tree cuttings are generally propagated at the end of winter when they are pruned as they come out of dormancy. Propagating an actively growing, green cutting is just as easy! Here is what I did:

First, I went down to Bunnings and bought a bag of seed raising mix, which will cost about $6 and a bag of perlite which costs about $8, although these prices may vary depending upon where you live.

I then mixed these together in a ratio of about 40% perlite to 60% seed raising mix, and put them into an empty shoebox, the final mix looked like this:

I took four cuttings from the donor fig. I chose four branches about 1.5-2x larger than a pencil thick, and pulled off any figs and leaves that were on the branches. I have read previously that green cuttings can be fooled into a state of semi-dormancy by placing them in the fridge prior to germination. I put my cuttings in the fridge for just over 1 week.


Before putting the figs into my propagating mix I used a pair of scissors to lightly scrape away some of the brown bark on four sides of the cutting so that the green stem underneath was visible, and then dipped each cutting into a rooting hormone with 3g/L Indole-3-Butyric Acid. I bought this at Bunnings and it cost me about $10 from memory. There were two types available, a red version and a purple. I chose the purple, as it was listed as for softwood cuttings.

Before placing my cuttings in the soil mix I dampened the mixture so that it was damp to touch, and yet still light and fluffy. It is important to make sure that the soil mix isn't too wet, as this can invite rot, and suffocate any newly developing roots.

I put the cuttings in my mix, covering them totally with the soil mixture, and then put them in a room in the front of my house that receives plenty of afternoon sunshine, and stays nice and warm. About every 3 days I went with a spray bottle and gave the mix a good spray to ensure it remained damp.

After just over 2 weeks I dug up the cuttings to check on the root growth and was greeted with this lovely image!

I then potted three of these cuttings into plastic cups, so I could see the progress of the root growth, and one into a 1.9L pot. I then put all of these cutting into the bath in the bathroom, to ensure a nice high level of humidity to encourage further root and leaf growth.

I will talk about the soil mix I potted the cuttings into in another post, and update with the cutting progress as time goes by.

Thanks all for tuning in to my inaugural blog post!

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