laurie (Mother Mastiff) wrote:

Sue,

Boy, it's been too long!

Last year when I first planted my fig (from the Farmer's Mkt, probably a
Brown Turkey, or labeled as such), the entire "tree" top was about the size
of a basketball, but it produced LOTS of luscious, medium sized fruits. I
was amazed and delighted and we thoroughly enjoyed the fruit; I use my fresh
figs to make clafouti, a heavy, traditional pudding with fruit on top.

This year, the tree is 5-6 times bigger, but the fruits have been much less
plentiful per branch, small and pale. I have bird netting over the tree, so
birds haven't gotten to it, but there are so few fruits this year! I
worried that the growth of the stems, leaves, and roots of this very young
tree might have been at the expense of the fruit, but it sounds like your
crop is very similar. Maybe something in the weather has affected the crop
across the area.

I fell desperately in love with 3 varieties on the Paradise site, and plan
to order them for spring (subject to the family fig-lover's agreement on my
choices). Oh my, something that may NEARLY supplant my beloved blueberries.
ALMOST. No fair to tempt a person THAT much!

laurie, imagining a full season of delicious clafoutis made with different
colors and sizes of figs!

"Siouxzi" wrote in message
...

My brown turkey fig is only a few years old, but it's probably close
to 20 feet tall. This year, it produced very small fruits in small
numbers, most of which were out of reach to me (but not to the
birds!).
I'd like to prune it pretty severely, and baby it next spring in hopes
of getting a good sweet crop. Will it be OK if I cut it down to 4 feet
or so and remove some big side branches?
And is this a good time to do it, after the fruits are gone?

Tanks
Sue




Just a thought,
I've always read and have practiced planting fig trees in a hole with
barriers which restrict the roots. I dig the hole about 3X3X3 or so and
line it with rocks, chunks of broken cinder block, that sort of thing.
What I've read is that the fig tree will grow large and not produce much
fruit unless the roots are somewhat restriced. I had lots of sweet
large figs, so it must be working. I have 3 fig trees right now and all
three produced nicely this year. Two trees are two years old and about
5-6 feet high, and one tree is about 5 years old and ~15 feet high, had
trouble reaching figs even with a ladder. I've never pruned mine. But
may prune the large one just so I can reach the figs.
Eileen