Homes and Gardens / figs
Figs
This is hardly the time to be thinking about figs
A fig is for late summer, for those long lazy, hazy days that by January feel almost fictional. My fig tree grows outside my back door and come August and September I wander out, pluck a luscious sun-warmed fruit or two, and imagine I’m on holiday instead of on my tea break. I’m sure I didn’t dream it.
Now that all of the fruits have been eaten and the tree has lost those beautifully sculpted leaves, the temptation is to leave the fig to its own devices. But ignore a fig all winter and you do pay a price. Look at a tree and you will see that it is covered in small figs. In the Med (and even in some parts of the UK) the winters are mild enough to allow these to come through unscathed, and form the first crop of the year. Look closer and you will see another set of tiny figs on the tree, much smaller, more like pea-sized, and this is the second flush that will ripen late next summer.
In Bristol the big ones will come to nothing: I left the big figs on my tree last year (about as mild a winter as they come) and they were all damaged and dropped off, while still managing to delay the second crop. It is a painful job, wrong feeling, but I must go over the tree now and pick off those big fruits, the ones that really look like they are going to come to something but in fact never will. Fruity late summer tea breaks will be my reward.
is needed now More than ever
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