My fig tree believes in global warming....The last 2 years, our fig tree

[old mark]

has been producing figs earlier than its past 8 year records - this year, we got our first edible ripe figs on July 31, nearly a month ahead of usual, and we are getting 20-30 per day as of Monday...by the mid month, we will have almose a hundred a day.
We usually can freeze at least 15 pounds of them... this year I believe we will be freezing more than 25 pounds of fresh figs for use all winter.

FWIW, we do NOTHING to this tree except prune it every fall...no feeding, and maybe watering in the early summer - we do not wrap it in winter, although we did for the first 2 or 3 years.

We live in SE Pennsylvania, north and west of Philly.
The figs are just great, and having a producing fig tree was a dream of mine for years.

mark

[whyverne]

1. Interesting, I wouldn't have guessed that could be done in PA

I was reading last night about how the fig tree was associated with goddess worship back in the days before god the father became the standard in the Middle East. Some even say that's why Jesus cursed the fig tree. But you probably already know that.

[old mark]

5. I didn't know any of that - we bought our tree from a mail order catalog -Millers, IIRC -

it arrived as a dried stick with roots. It is taking over the yard today, and we will have to prune it extremely this fall to keep it all within reach.

We seem to have had very good luck with it-I believe because we mainly left it alone.


mark

[Kolesar]

7. My friend digs up his fig trees every fall and stores them "inside" until spring

Then he replants them in the vegetable garden. I think he puts the trees in buckets in the garage.

They have not fruited yet.

[old mark]

8. Yeah, we read a lot about people who really pamper their fig trees.

We bought a cheap plant from a mail order catalog for a few bucks, added some nutrients when we planted it, wrapped it for the first 3 years. We prune it well every 2 years and water it maybe 2 times a month till the fruit starts. Then we just neglect it and pick the fruit till October.

I think people really just fuck with them too much.


mark

[joshcryer]

2. Proof that global warming is good for plants.

More CO2!

[Javaman]

3. So...

are you just going to talk about it or are you going to share some of that figgy pudding??

[old mark]

4. The way it looks this morning, I will have to buy a new freezer to fit them all in -

My wife makes some great fig/lemon marmalade, though - send us your PO Box info sometime in October.

they also serve to keep your tubes clean...


mark

[Javaman]

6. Good for you. :) I have a small Turkish Fig in my yard.

I transplanted it from a pot earlier this year.

I'm really impressed by its robustness. It didn't produce much in the way of figs this year (transplant shock), but by the way it's growing, I shouldn't be far behind you in a year or two.

Cheers! :)

[LiberalEsto]

9. Is it a Brown Turkey fig?

We planted a Brown Turkey several years ago in our yard in Rockville, Maryland. This year it is spectacular, and yes, our figs are early too. I think the heavy snow helped a lot of our plants by raising the water table.

I put a cage of chicken wire around the base of the tree in the late fall and fill it with leaves as insulation for the winter.

Thanks for the tip about freezing the figs!