I've got a number of potted fig trees of different unidentified varieties which I overwinter in a cold cellar. Every spring they start to produce figs before leaves, but in early summer they drop these figs, and form a main crop later in the season.
The problem is that summers here are fairly short, and not always very hot. The figs that ripen first are good, but the later ones, that ripen during colder weather, are bland and dry. Most years I get some of each. In hot summers I get enough delicious figs to keep me hoping, and in cool summers, like the one just past, I have to watch a heavy fruit set turn into dry hard tasteless figs that even the squirrels don't bother with.
I did, however, get one excellent fig this summer. It was the sole breba fruit that didn't drop, from a Brown Turkey type tree, my best producer. It was ready in early August, and it was delicious.
What I'd like to know is whether it's possible to induce the trees to retain their breba crop, so I can have figs ripening in the hotter weather. I'm willing to pick off all the main crop figs as they form. Since the trees are in pots, it's not too difficult to control the amount of water and fertilizer they get. For that matter, I can keep them in the dark cellar longer too, although unless they are dry, they start growing too early and the new growth gets etiolated.
I'm in downtown Toronto, Canada, and have only a small garden. The figs spend the summer on a west-facing concrete patio, against a dark wall, and are in black pots, in hopes of obtaining more warmth for them without cooking the poor things. I take them in after their leaves have fallen and before there's a risk of the soil freezing, and put them out in the spring when it's warm enough that I think they can take it, earlier if they are still looking fairly dormant. The breba figs don't usually all drop until some time later, after they are well leafed out and growing well.
Any suggestions short of building these "pet" trees a heated greenhouse? I'd appreciate pointers and references as well as your ideas. Please post here, or if you want to correspond, take the ".no-uce" out of my email address.