Re: Frozen Figs

Hi Tim and all,
My husband and I saw fig trees (don't know what kind, though) growing
on Bornholm in the Baltic Sea when we visited that island. The trees
were planted against the south-facing wall of yellow brick houses (and
some red brick ones, too) in courtyards of farmhouses and city houses.
The sea around the island obviously mitigated the winter temperatures.
We visited the island twice, once in the late spring of 1970, where the
winter had been cold enough to freeze Aarhus Bay over, and once in
the spring of 1980 after a mild winter in Copenhagen. We were never able
to talk to anyone about how they took care of their trees, but obviously
the long summer days were a help in getting the fruit to ripen.
Elly Bade

On Sun, 9 Jul 2000, Tim Longville wrote:

> David - Despite the gloomy prognostications of the climatically spoilt
> Californians <VBG> it's perfectly possible to grow and fruit figs in
> much colder parts of the UK than either Devon or even the arctic Avon!
> We used to have one which flourished and fruited well on a Derbyshire
> hillside, despite regular bitterly cold winters and cool cloudy wet
> summers. OK, I accept that you have to be growing one of the more cold
> hardy (and less 'interesting' - aka 'delicious'?) ones, such as Brown
> Turkey, but I'd guess something of that sort's what your brother has?
> In which case, the secrets, as I understand them, are: (1) plant at
> the foot of a wall (for dryness); (2) restrain the brute's roots (so
> that it starves and in desperation fruits - otherwise it expends all
> its considerable energy on making foliage). The traditional method
> (which we followed by default, having inherited said method along with
> house and fig) was to sink something substantial and vertical into the
> soil on all the sides via which the roots might escape - only three
> of'em if you follow the by-a-wall recommendation! In the case of our
> Derbyshire fig, the substantial verticals were massive old stone
> roofing 'slates,' each about 4ft square. I did sometimes wonder how
> far the roots were prepared to go *down* in the hunt for food... but
> that wasn't my problem and the method certainly did the trick,
> reliably, year after year.
> 
> Hope that helps.
> 
> Cheers
> Tim
> fig-less by the Solway Firth
> 
> 
> Tim Longville
> 
>
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index