Figgie Pruning
If you had read our first post you would have thought that the beginning of our journey was with our chickens. It is true that we planned on starting with chickens and building from there. However, what set our plan in motion was figs. We purchased our property in the fall of 2018 and on our little tract of land were these huge fig trees, four to be exact. If I am going to be honest I hated the idea of having these fig trees. They were huge and took up to much space by our garage. Well in the early part of winter I cut three of them down and we left one, as it was a good source of shade and provided some landscape appeal. Spring arrived and the leaves sprouted on the lone fig tree and soon we had figs. I would pluck one two from its branches on occasion as I walked by and enjoyed the sweet juicy flavor. When I was younger we would spend time at my grandmothers house in Georgia and she had fig trees and I spent many a day hiding in those trees pretending to be hiding in some far off jungle.
As more figs presented themselves on the tree my curiosity grew, as did that of my grandchildren about these odd looking fruits. Well one day we did some looking around online and discovered that figs are actually inverted flowers. Wait it gets better! Also there is a small passage at the bottom of the fig that allows a fig wasp to enter and pollinate the fig. My interest was now peaked and now I had to figure out what type of tree we had because I had no idea. I ultimately discovered that we have a Celeste fig tree as they are the most common in our area. You may be asking what all of this has to do with how figs started the wheels in motion? Backstory of course and thought I would mention some facts about figs too.
The summer of 2019 had come and our fig tree was covered with figs and we didn't really know what to do with them. My wife had this idea to post on Facebook that we had figs for sale by the pound. Well within an hour of the posting we had about seven people wanting figs. Over the next to weeks I was picking figs when I woke up, before work and after work. The demand was incredible. My wife then began to make fig spread so we picked the tree clean and she spent a day canning fig spread. The spread turned out amazing and we had so many jars of it so we began giving them away and we were surprised at the interest it drew. We now had people buying our fresh figs as well as our jam and to think I didn't want the fig tree on our property. What a dummy I was. The three other trees did grow back by the end of the summer and produced a few figs by the end of the season.
It is now winter and our trees need pruning. The one tree is to big to reach figs at the top and is growing in all sorts of directions.
I have pruned all branches that cross over each other and many branches in the middle. This is to allow me a small entry into the center of the tree during the fruiting months to make it easier to pick the figs. I have also cut any branches that are laying on the ground as this hinders the quality of the fruit on those branches.
As you can see I have managed to save some of the stems that were growing on the ground. These branches had roots growing from the sections that were in contact with the ground and I am hoping they grow nicely. I will post updates later on about the success or failure of these cuttings. I also pruned some of the other three fig trees which had some crossing branches as well as branches growing towards the ground. These three fig trees were cut down to the ground at the beginning of 2019. Amazing how resilient these plants are and thank goodness for that.
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