Forbidden Fruit

ADAM AND EVE WORE FIG LEAVES AND THE BUDDHA SAT UNDER AN ANCIENT FIG TREE — BUT THE FRUIT IS LEGENDARY AS WELL

- Jennifer Stackhouse

Figs have a double harvest as they produce two crops a year. The main crop forms in summer and ripens in autumn. The second crop, known as the breba, grows in spring and ripens in summer.

While two crops are a bonus, it is that delicious flavor that comes with biting into a ripe fig harvested fresh from the garden that reminds you why this is the ideal backyard fruit tree. The sweetest figs are the ones bursting out of their skins and you’ll never find those in the shops.

Left to grow, the fig grows into a large and handsome shade tree reaching 6m tall and 4m wide. If this sounds bigger than expected (and it is very large if you intend to net the tree), control its size by pruning it in winter when the tree is bare and the crop has been harvested.

Figs can tolerate a hard prune if the tree has grown out of control. Winter pruning also encourages new growth, which provides lots of fruit. Some gardeners also control the root spread by digging around the tree at the edge of the canopy (the point known as the dripline).

BEST CLIMATE

We have a huge fig in our cold-climate garden. It’s in a warm microclimate well sheltered from cold winds and benefits from the overflow of water from our house tanks. It’s so big we stand on top of the concrete tanks to reach the ripe fruit at the top.

While the breba crop is usually abundant and delicious in spring, the main crop always fails to ripen as the cold weather arrives too quickly. Every year I have high hopes it will get there, but it always stays green and eventually falls to the ground with the cold weather. Even the birds seem disappointed.