Figs Next
Hope I don't wear out the mat asking questions, but you medit-plant people
are so knowledgable, it whets my appetite to ask things I haven't been
able to get answered out of books or people around here. This question is
about a fig. I have a fig bush a little over 2 meters high and
easily that wide that produces two crops every other year, one in late
June/early July and again in late August/September. The off-year crop,
like this year, comes in late August. The fruit is quite small-about
thumb-size-and when ripe is purplish-brown and often has an azure bloom.
The flesh is coral pink. What a flavor! Like fresh honey. The plant is
a prolific bearer, and I freeze most of the crop to enjoy through winter.
Does anyone know if this could be the so-called 'Turkey Brown,' which
catalogs say is the most cold hardy fig? The woman I bought the place
from said she remembered her father planting the fig the year the house
was built in 1960. Since then the village has had sub-zero Fahrenheit
(below -18C ) temperatures with an all-time low of -25F (-32C) in
1974. My first winter here (Dec. 1990) we had sub-zero F temps four nights
in a row, the lowest hitting -10F (-24C) (knock on wood-we haven't seen
that in nine years). But it had little effect on this fig, very
little die back at the tips of some of the branches. So, is cold tolerance
actually a trait of old figs? I do not touch this plant year around
except to pick its fruit. I don't water it, fertilize it, spray it, cover
it or anything. It's not in a protected location. Incidentally, my
yearly average rainfall is 200mm (7/8"), but we have a very high water
table, and I understand Ficus in general has
roots that go to China. Very dry air--as I write this, humidity outside is
12%. Our average January nighttime temperature is 17F
(-9C) and daytime temp 50F (10C); the average July daytime temperature is
92F (33C). So as an approximation you can see the fig gets a nice wide
range of temps.
