Garden Studios

DO YOUR figs drop off the tree, as hard as conkers, and are there figs to your tree at the moment, in November, that appear to be they could just make something of themselves if only it were August?

That’s exactly what happened to my fig tree, bought on a whim at a garden centre, until i spotted i used to be doing something wrong.

Thankfully I did know that fig tree roots ought to be constricted, in order that the plant puts all its efforts into producing fruit in place of putting down a never-ending root system in quest of water.

My fig tree is planted in compost in a wooden half barrel, with broken terracotta pots within the bottom to help drainage, and it’s in an exceedingly sheltered sunny spot.

I’ve had the tree for approximately three years now, although it’s only about 4ft tall, however it is clearly mature enough to supply, because this summer about half a dozen figs did grow sufficiently big – and ripe enough – to eat.

But twice as many shriveled up inside the spring or simply dropped off randomly, so i determined to determine where i used to be going wrong.

It seems I’m probably guilty of not watering it enough throughout the spring: it needs much more watering in a pot than if it were within the ground.

But, crucially, I’ve been leaving the half-grown figs on over winter inside the hope that they’re going to survive the winter.

These are those that ended up withered. The few that I did harvest were new fruit that were only pea-sized buds this time last year.

So today i’ve picked the eight small figs that were happily growing on it – after checking that there really were new buds at the twig-like branches.

And this winter I’m going to take somewhat more care of it than i’ve before, and throw a horticultural fleece over it if the nights (or days) turn Arctic.

The usual advice is to take pot-grown fig trees inside or into greenhouses over winter, but since I don’t have a greenhouse and the pot is just too heavy to go it might should stay where it’s.

Hopefully this will get through winter with none problems, then i will start dosing it up with tomato feed in April and ensure I water it daily during summer.

If you have got a large fig tree the proper time to prune that is in March, but mine seriously isn’t large enough yet, unless any of the branches die.

Whatever you do, though, don’t prune the hot wood back very far otherwise you won’t get any figs in any respect!