Question on Fig Trees

The ones that will grow into ripe fruit next year will be more apparent after leaf fall.

 

@pete @JWK do you prune yours? I have got some cuttings I've rooted from a variety that came as a cutting from Italy about 40 years ago. (The local Italian community used to bring stuff from home.) The figs are enormous and purple and luscious but the tree is huge, and I want to keep mine controlled so that I get more than the blackbirds! Like @Danny Hughes I intend to sink a pot in the ground to help restrict them, but what top pruning do people do?

 

I do as little pruning as I can get away with, mostly because you end up cutting off those tiny over wintering fruits.
Problem I find is the shoots just keep getting longer so eventually you have to cut some branches back.

@CarolineL do your figs ripen ok outside?

 

Oh yes. They've been ripening on the original tree and dropping off for the past couple of weeks. Seems to do very well here, just in suburban garden.
I am thinking taking more cuttings so I can have a fig grove out in my woodland

 

Latest picking from the mature tree

 

I followed your advice and just ate my first ripe fig, and it was delicious. I barely touched it and it hopped off the tree. The colour was not at all like the figs at the supermarket (yellow and brown with very little purple), but the flavor was just the same.

Looks like I was being impatient and just had to wait.

 

So that is the Italian fig and not the ones we normally find in the UK, and it ripens ok outside.

 

@Danny Hughes yes when really ripe they come away easily, but wait too long and they fall off for the wasps!
Yes @pete - the one from Italy. Name unknown. I spent ages at weekend making fig Newton bars since there are so many fruit. Partly successful. A bit soggy but taste great

 

I've never heard of Fig Newtons and had to google it, looks a bit like a fig roll.