OT October Chit Chat

[stillstANNding]

Thanks for the catch-up, Susan. Now, I want to ask Linda about fig trees and if you plant them in a container and bring them in in the winter? I have skylights in the LR- I'd love to grow figs!
ANN

[ssusan]

Hi Ann,

I could give a second hand answer but a better idea is I'll have Linda answer directly.
~Susan

[Lazarus]

fig tree

Hi Ann
Yo Yo MA. Am I jealous.

SSusan told me you had asked abou fig trees.
Yes, you would plant them in container and bring it in for the winter. What is LR (skylight)?
Most of my customers put them in the cellar or back room for the winter, just watering once in a while to make sure roots don't die.

Fig trees ar diciduous and drop their leaves for the winter. Around March people fetilize and water and get them ready to put out as soon as the danger of frost is over.

They are really easy and require very little effort.

Nice to be in touch.
Linda

[stillstANNding]

Thank you Linda! I was thinking living room under skylights but I see, put them in the dark like dahlia bulbs. Got it.

Yo Yo Ma. Yes, he is more than an excellent cello player. He has a playful way and really looks at people and listens. He played a Dvorak cello concerto. Bartok's Wooden Prince was also on the program.

ANN

[nuthatch]

Hi Ann,
Thought you might enjoy this picture of a fig from one of my two fig trees. I am interested to hear what Linda has to say about growing a fig tree in a container indoors during those harsh winters you have on your side of the country.
Years ago, we almost lost the tree that produced the fig in the picture, a brown turkey, due to a prolonged period of below freezing temperatures. While morning frost is pretty normal here, it didn't warm up in the daytime and stayed below freezing for more than a week. The tree was very young at that time and did not leaf out in the spring. We wanted to give it a chance, so just left it alone, but by the end of summer we were certain it was dead, the branches could just be snapped off.

My DH decided that since it was such a small, young tree he could simply pull it up, but when he tried, it just snapped off at ground level. He intended to plant a new fig tree there in the spring, but when spring came around again, an odd little clump of fig leaves made and appearance out of the ground where the tree had broken off! That was more than 18 years ago, and to this day that fig tree/bush has rewarded us richly with more wonderful figs than most trees three times it's size.

This year we have had very strange weather and the figs are just now ripening. There are lots of figs on the tree, but I am afraid that we could get a frost soon, and as soon as we do, it's all over. When the first frost hits, the tree drops all it's leaves and stops production within two days . . . fig trees don't like frost at all!
Normally I would have had tons of figs by now and be sick of them. I give lots and lots away, have made jam and even dehydrated figs in the past, but prefer eating them fresh off the tree.
I hope Linda can advise you if it's possible, or how to have fresh figs year around!

[Lady]

Joan, that fig is amazing. California weather sounds nice to me. We had some really bad blizzards in the east coast, all in a row last year. Blah!

We had a big tree in the yard that got hit by lightening split in two and had to be cut to the stump, dead. We were heartbroken. It was a lovely shade tree. Then the next year it came up again in for force to our surprise. The landscaper said the top of the tree died but the roots didn't know that, so it thinks the tree is still there, so it came back again because it had huge roots that were deep.

ssusan, " Happy Birthday" to you my dear hard working teacher to be. So you and Linda did well selling all her produce and a tree. Great news Linda.

Ann, went to hear Yo Yo Ma, I bet she took all her dark chocolate with her. He is very talented.

Cherie, did your parents get to see Betsy and her two children?

Hello to everyone out there. Drop in on chit-chat. Take a break from your busy lives.


.

[stillstANNding]

Joan, that is a beauty of a fig. Figs are one of those things I always thought that I didn't like but had never tasted. Then at a grocery shop they had samples of fig spread on fancy crackers. It was delicious! I thought about that for a week and bought some the next week. I am now thinking a fig tree would work well here.

Lady, I did slide a bar of dark chocolate into my bag for the intermission at the BSO. It seemed less obvious than an apple. :)