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Applestar; lucky you with the figs. Our 'tree' - chest high shrub - has many figs on it for the first time but they are small, hard & green and starting to fall. That's despite having had a very warm/hot summer. It's 'Brown Turkey' which is locally recommended. Any hints?

Vanisle_BC wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 16, 2021 1:25 pm

Applestar; lucky you with the figs. Our 'tree' - chest high shrub - has many figs on it for the first time but they are small, hard & green and starting to fall. That's despite having had a very warm/hot summer. It's 'Brown Turkey' which is locally recommended. Any hints?

Here is a video, How to make figs get ripe. Cut off all the tree leaves figs get ripe.

Frost makes certain fruit like persimmons & goose berries get ripe. My mother use to pick enough goose berries for a pie, she put them in the freezer over night then moved them to the refrigerator next day to get ripe..

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=ho ... &FORM=VIRE

if the figs are falling, the tree has usually been stressed. Usually by uneven watering but it could be something attacking the root system like nematodes.

Thanks Gary & imafan for the fig advice. The tree doesn't appear stressed at all but the figs are only about half size; hard, green and definitely not going to make it. But this is the first year it's had more than a couple of tiny fruit so maybe next year will be 'the one.' I'll see what I can feed it meantime. So far I've never seen any 'first' crop.

Vanisle_BC wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 16, 2021 5:50 pm

Thanks Gary & imafan for the fig advice. The tree doesn't appear stressed at all but the figs are only about half size; hard, green and definitely not going to make it. But this is the first year it's had more than a couple of tiny fruit so maybe next year will be 'the one.' I'll see what I can feed it meantime. So far I've never seen any 'first' crop.

I had a Red Delicious apple tree when we lived at the other house it took 18 years for it to finally grow good apples. I followed all the rules I knew from working in an orchard 50 years ago, I followed all the instructions online & YouTube nothing worked. I decided to do my own thing, I know tree needs lots of P & K for blossoms and fruit & probably needs nitrogen too. Every Sunday after church I gave the tree 1 cup of 15-15-15 fertilizer & 1 cup of Urea & 5 gallons of water. I cut down a maple tree that was shading the apple tree. That year the apple tree made 14 bushels of good ripe apples. If an apple tree does not get enough full sun apples are hard as wood. We canned 35 quart jars of apple pie filling. Maybe your fig tree needs more sun & more fertilizer.

OK, here I am! I’ve split the fig discussion to its own thread since there was so much enthusiasm about the topic and I was late to the party.

Let me start by reminding everyone -myself included - about this other thread because I found it while looking for what I might have said about figs in the past when I was researching about them more—
Share your Fig Tree -- Growing in the Ground - HelpfulGardener.com
viewtopic.php?t=64490

Evidently I totally forgot and haven’t been posting to that thread in a while But I described the reason why I bought Chicago Hardy in the first place, which is that it’s hardy to Zone 5, whereas most figs including Brown Turkey are most comfortable in Zone 7 and up, and borderline Zone 6 tolerant figs are dependent on selecting a favorable micro climate and/or exercising dedicated winter protection techniques.

It seems to me though that winter temperature shouldn’t be an issue at Vanisle’s location. So it could just be that the tree needs to mature a bit more — mine is certainly producing earlier, managing to grow breba (spring) as well as fall crop now, and the fruits have gotten bigger.

To encourage the current green fruits on the tree to mature, I can think of a couple of techniques —
1. Prune the branches halfway between the last fruit and next leafnode so the fruits are assigned apical dominance (VIP status)
2. For same reason, prune back branches that have no fruits and any that are growing taller than the other fruits or bend/tie them down to level that is lower than the fruits
3. Clear ground surrounding the tree to drip line and apply epsom salt and lime solution, and cover with black plastic mulch to warm the ground and roots
4. If growing in open area and not against a south-facing wall or fence, raise a wind shelter agains cold/cooler north winds.
5. FWIW I’ve been spraying mine with potassium bicarbonate and epsom salt solution to keep down fungal issues, and alternating with diluted (by about 1:100) lactofermented fruit scraps, yeast, and yogurt brew


…For future seasons, I think something you may want to consider is a fig characteristic that is described time and time again in older horticulture literature — figs produce better when their roots are restricted. Otherwise, they just put more energy into growing bigger as a tree.

• Classic technique in historical texts is to “tile” the hole.

• I planted against a house wall which is almost always warned not to do “because the fig roots will destroy the house foundation” — yeah I decided if the fig roots destroyed the family room concrete slab, then that would be the incentive to renovate/remodel it, at which point almost certainly we will enlarge the room to include where the fig is growing so it will have to be dug up and moved, solving a number of expected problems all at once….

• In any event, the fig should currently should be struggling against the sand and gravel underlayment to the concrete pad which should be piled up on the subsoil which as I have mentioned before is SOLID PACKED BLUEGREEN CLAY around here

• There is a miniature rain garden rice paddy in front of the tree which limits its frontward root development. The paddy also helps maintain even moisture by draining and leaching as a water reservoir, AND reflects sunlight when full of water to increase light levels and heat

• The family room wall faces SouthWest. — the fig serves double duty to block the hot sun and shade the family room wall during the summer while shedding all its leaves and allowing for significantly pruning the branches during winter months so the sun can warm the wall

…I’ll post if I think of something else

If the fig is small enough you can bring it inside in winter to keep it warmer. I have had Brown Turkey and it never gets that cold here, but figs will produce from mature cuttings within a year in a one gallon pot.