North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Richard Moyer <ramoyer@gmail.com>]

Steve's location in Wisconsin:

"USDA zone 3 (with pretty good summer heat)"
As long as you can keep the roots from freezing (heavy mulch or bringing indoors), AND you have adequate heat for ripening, figs are possible in most of the temperate US.  We did the potted thing for a while, but having a lesser constitution than folks such as Miekal, gave up schlepping the plants.  But is a good way to warm the roots earlier.

 

Hence we've restricted ourselves to those figs that bear on one year old wood, and can ripen such fruit as the nights grow cooler.  Helps to provide a warm microclimate, to keep the nighttime temps up a bit.

 

We've settled on Chicago Hardy as a fig that buds out in late May/early June, and ripens figs as early at late August or as late as end of Sept on new wood.  At our elevation, our hottest summer season averages mid 80 highs and lows of mid 60s.  Into the low 90s very rarely.  Much of the upper US states match or exceed these summer highs.

 

Those of you who've noted (nutritional?) failures with CH, we've never fertilized ours, other than several feet of hardwood leaves in the fall for winter insulation and summer (de)compost. 

 

Have seen Breba figs locally (those borne on last years wood), after a mild winter, on a bush that looks like Brunswick, that ripen in July.  But quality less than Chicago Hardy here, unless size the primary goal.

 

Some figs with a closed eye respond well to oiling, a method to hasten ripening by several weeks.  Apply food grade oil to ends of full-sized, dark green figs.  Leave an untreated branch of figs to note the increase in ripening time of the oiled figs.  We get CH into November this way, even after outer parts of the trees have frozen.

(Ray Givan, in SFF newsletter, recently noted that Chicago Hardy did not respond well to oiling, at his coastal Georgia conditions).  But we see enough of a difference for me to draft students or my kids to oil the figs each year. 

 

For those of you willing to give CH another try, consider a hotter microclimate, and hastening ripening with oil.

 

Richard Moyer

1800 ft.  USDA Heat Zone 6, East TN