Processing My Newly Arrived Celeste Cuttings

Celeste is commonly referred to as sugar fig due to its sweetness and it's considered a dessert fig, but can be used for drying and making preserves. It produces fruit about medium in size and has light brown to purple skin and bright pink flesh. One great advantage of this variety is the fruit is closed eye which discourages fruit beetles.

The trees are very cold hardy down to HZ 6. I do live in New York state and this is VERY important to me. Our winters are cold and we get quite a bit of the white stuff. 

I bought these cuttings from an Etsy seller. They advertised 10 cuttings for $16.00 plu shipping. I thought the price was reasonable and I went for it.  It took them two days to ship them, I thought that was reasonable, and then two additional days for me to receive these cuttings. If I had a penny for every time I tracked the package I'd be a rich American. 

The package came via USPS and it was clearly marked that it contained live plants. Sweet! 

I opened the outer package and inside I found the cuttings wrapped in a plastic bag. The bag was securely sealed with easy to open ties.

Inside the bag I found 12 cuttings! The original offer was for 10 cuttings. At that moment I knew they were working hard for a good Etsy review. The bottoms of the cuttings were wrapped in a wet paper towel. They do that to keep the alive during shipping. 

Using a mat knife I removed from the bottom of each cutting the bark to expose the cambium layer in order to promote root growth. 

After I removed the bark of the cuttings I set them in three separate plastic containers that were 3/4 full with regular tap water.

The cuttings need to be near light BUT NOT in direct sunlight. 

Cover each bucket with plastic to keep the cuttings nice and moist. Change the water one a day RELIGIOUSLY. In about four weeks you will see roots growing. Watch out for an update in a month or so. 

 Cloning figs with cuttings is a very slow process similar to watching elephants mate. Be patient...