Fig tree

Hi all

One of my most pressing/current topics:

My fig tree - a prize possession I've nurtured since it was given to me as an 18 inch twig!. It is five to six years old and came to me as a one-stick cutting taken from a fig tree in Cornwall (Eden?!). It has thrived.

However, I do have a problem in so far as it's first fruit yeald of the year produces just a handful of fruit. This year I had seven (beautifully dark, sweet and very tasty - much better than supermarket fruit) and it's second fruit crop is ... HUGE. All these, of course, were picked off and thrown away. Over 160! I left one on the tree as it looked as though it was changing colour. It did eventually ripen to a small fruit with quite a thick skin and nowhere near as tasty as the summer fruits.

Is there anything I can do to swap its habits round so that I get an amazing crop in summer and a smaller second crop?

This December I plan to repot the tree into a 20" terra cotta pot. I would also appreciate any advice anyone can give regarding exactly how I should deal with the transplanting and feeding, what compost to use etc. It is at present against a south-west facing garage wall and, as it has flourished there, I plan to leave it there unless advised otherwise.

I look forward to receiving any comments or advice.

I'm sure I'll be back with loads more questions!!

 

Welcome!
All I really know about figs is that to fruit they need to have their roots constrained, so you might risk losing out on your crop if you pot it up, Suzi.
I'm sure someone else will pop in soon and add to that! :D

 

Hi suzisu06, I have a fig but it is planted in the ground, with slate around the roots to keep the roots in check as Dendy says. This means you get slower top growth and more fruit.
If you are going to re-pot I probably would choose a size just a bit bigger than the one it is already in. Whether the middle of winter is a good time to do this I'm not sure, maybe someone else can help.

 

Hi Suzisu06 and welcome to GC

I haven't been very successful with my fig tree yet, but what I have been told is that any largish fruit buds should be taken off over winter, as they will not ripen and will waste the tree's energy. Only leave the tiny new fruit buds, so in spring and early summer, this is what the tree will concentrate on for the main crop in August. They thrive on lots of warm sunshine and restricted roots - how big is the pot now? Don't go too big - as Blackthorne says - just one size up will suffice.

Hope this helps

 

I'm a bit of a rebel as far as growing figs is concerned, I know all the books say they need root restriction, but I have a theory that this goes back to the days of growing them in greenhouses, when if you didn't, there wouldn't be much room for anything else.
Its a kind of bonsai.
If you plant it outside and you have room, why cant it have free root run like any other tree.
If you restrict the roots, then grow it under glass, that way you will perhaps get the second crop your after, otherwise I cant see the point.

 

If that works for you, Pete, that's got to be ok! I've never grown them myself, and I doubt if I'll bother here in Falkirk, but you never know....

How's your sarcococca doing, btw?

 

Fig trees if gown unrestricted make very big plants with less fruit, not really practical in a small garden. I don't think there is anything wrong with restricting it if it is fruit that you want, we do it with all sorts of fruits, like grafting apples onto dwarf rootstock etc.
I do like the shape of a nice big fig tree though so I do understand what you mean.

 

Was just trying to say that if you restrict the roots, you are getting the worst of both worlds, I think.
The only way to get that second heavy crop in the UK is to grow under glass, and restrict the roots.
If your growing it outside you wont get the second crop, but I also think the first crop will be smaller if the roots are restricted.
But thats just my idea, many books have been written stating that you should always restrict the roots.
I wonder how many authors are just quoting what they have read in other books.
It happens a lot.

Sarcococca doing fine dendy, slow but fine.

 

Glad to hear it, Pete!
You're so right about the authors quoting other authors - there was a thread that brought this up before, wasn't there? About moving hellebores, I think....

 

My fig behaved very oddly this year. It has just dropped all its leaves, so I can see the number of half grown fruit. In spite of the hot weather it only ripened about 10 figs.
Last year I left it to its own devices and didn't pick the half grown ones off, so this year I am going to remove them, leaving just the tiny buds.
My tree is planted in a stony bit of soil but the roots are not restricted . I'll see what happens next year! It also has lots of tiny buds [not 160 by any means] and I might try taking some off... In principle I would have thought that as yours is a young tree, if it has many tiny buds, it might be better to take off some as we do with other fruit, so that the ones which do ripen are better quality.

There is also the question of variety- do you know if it is a more exotic variety than the common Brown Turkey?

 

Hi all

Thanks for your replies, tips etc. I'm sure they will prove very useful.

Apologies for the delay in responding due to a long weekend away in stormy East Sussex.

To Liz - I really don't know exactly what variety the fig is as it came to me as a cutting taken from the fig in the dome at Eden!!

I'm new to this and unsure as to how it all works, so please do bear with me. One day I may even manage to get a photo up there too!! Once I get the knack I'll see if I can upload a pix of my tree.

 

Looking forward to that, Suzisu!

 

Liz, how tall is your fig tree. A friend of mine has a fig tree in his garden 9 feet tall and fruits. every 2 years he trims the branches.

 

Fancy, My tree is just a touch taller than me - making it appx 5ft 2in or so. It is now probably as wide as it is tall so I'm not really looking forward to repotting it.
It fruits twice a year, but the second yield has to be discarded (although this year I did leave ONE on the tree as it was beginning to ripen. It did eventually, but was much smaller and not as sweet as the earlier ones). I've just got some fleece to wrap around it this year in an attempt to protect the 'flowers' from the frosts. This is not something I've done before and a tip I picked up from the RHS website, so I'm hoping this will help me get a much larger yield in summer.
I do have a couple of pix of it and shall read up on how to upload them on to GC.

 

As a PS - here it is ...

(hope this works!!)