The Importance of Sunlight | Carlos Rivera's Tips for Fig Growers

I've committed to doing a number of "fig" interviews each Monday night. It's an opportunity to learn from other fig growers by having in depth conversations about their growing experiences. It's a pleasure to share these conversations with you all so that you can benefit from the knowledge shared as well. These videos will be published over the coming Mondays throughout the winter. I hope you all enjoy them!

First up is my friend Carlos Rivera. Carlos is a fig grower who I deeply respect. He is a highly passionate individual with a magnetic personality for figs. Like myself he is growing fig trees in the Northeast and is located in Roselle, New Jersey. He grows fig trees mainly in containers and this season his container Black Madeira (a notoriously late variety) produced main crop on August 9th without any greenhouse head start. That is truly amazing. For instance, in the past the earliest I could get my Black Madeira to ripen was Sept 1st and that was with the use of a greenhouse. I wanted to dig further with Carlos to go through all of the steps that he takes during his growing season. We talk about fertilizer, sunlight, hand watering, pinching, his process for getting them out of his garage in the spring and MORE.

These are his tips for success: