Hi, this is my first post to any kind of forum. I was web searching for info on fig trees and this site came up. I live on a ranch in the brittle Texas Hill country, we have been in a four year drought, some fig trees grow 'wild' on the creek that travels through my ranch, but I don't know if they make fruit (they are not on my part of the creek). I have two fig tree questions: 1) I moved here in 2000 and there was a large fig tree planted near the old ranch house. It got plenty of water (all the grey water from the kitchen sink), it has never made fruit, but is huge and has lots of foliage. Does anyone have ideas how to make it productive? 2) I bought two new trees this spring, still in pots, from San Antonio's best fruit tree nursery, and they are in my 'organic' garden, (to protect them from goats, geese, chickens etc.). One tree, (Blue Giant) came with and then matured large delicious fruit, the other (Celestial) was just a stick in a small container, I replanted it in a big pot. Both get watered often, generally daily, and occasionally they get goose poop water. I have given them Super Thrive, and Rose Glo (organic fertilizer), because they didn't look healthy to me (yellow leaves, few leaves). They look better (greener) now, but, are still sticks with few leaves. As a holistic vet, and if they were goats, I'd give them vitamin B12, B complex, ADE, kelp meal and probiotics. For my garden, I do use organic fertilizers only, I also have liquid seaweed, molasses, and mycorrhizae fungi. What suggestions do you have to improve these fig trees?
I'd suggest taking the opposite approach: cease with the amendments, concoctions and constant watering and let them 'suffer' a bit....a well tended, watered and fertilized fig tends to be lush with little fruit, whereas trees growing rootbound in pots produce abundantly. Less is more when it comes to fruiting figs.
Thank you woodschmoe, please know that my two new fig trees are the ones getting all the attention, and so far they don't have lush leaves, although one did have abundant fruit (it came that way when I purchased it). The one with lush leaves, is the big tree that was here when I moved to the ranch 12 years ago. It has always been somewhat neglected and has never had one fruit. Right now, I've got to water daily to keep my potted trees alive during this very hot Texas summer, and of course the absence of rain is another reason. I do not water the big fig tree, why waste precious water on a fig tree that has never had one fig?
