Fig dressing

The preparations for winter continue, and today it was the Model Fruit Garden fan-trained fig's turn to be put to sleep.

The fig, ready to go to bed

The first step was pruning the tree, untying it from the frame.

Syconium inflorescence, with inward looking florets and fruits

Figs (an inflorescence called syconium giving origin to a multiple, accessory fruit) form in the leaf
axils at the tip of new branches, so it is necessary constantly to generate new material through replacement pruning.

Cutting back to stubs

This consists in taking back some of the older branches to stubs - the only case (together with Dutch
cuts) where leaving snags after pruning is not frowned upon for plant's health reasons. To preserve the shape of the fan, and keep branches to an appropriate distance of some 10 cm, one also has to cut some branches back to their origin, but one has to make sure to preserve enough branch tips to get fruiting the following summer.

The pruning regime for trained figs also consisted of pinching back new shoots to 5 leaves before the end of June, so they produce shorter sideshoots, that have time to ripen before the frosts.

The fig is planted in a concrete pipe section to restrict growth and improve fruiting (one could use concrete slabs, as I do at home), but roots have a habit to run out on the surface and away, so we did some root pruning too to bring them back. As figs layer quite easily, the lowest branches also needed pulling outof the ground and pruning back where they had rooted.

The pruned fig

Wood turning mature (still part green)

Figs are hardy plants, when the wood is completely mature, but in the UK it is best to give them protection so as not to risk losing branch tips that are still not completely ripe.

So the next step was to cover the tree with bracken, a material that does not soak in water, so helps keep the plant dry as well as warm - it comes with a minor health risk, though, as bracken spores (relased mostly on hot dry days in late summer) may be carcinogenic if inhaled, so one might want to wear a face mask if doing this often.

We train our fig against a screen, so we put bracken between the tree and the frame, and then secured some netting along the whole widtht and height in front of the tree and stuffed bracken in between there too.

There is a best way to stuff bracken by pulling leaflets from the stems (that will be discarded), bunching them up all in the same direction (fronds down) and using them like that, nice and tidy.  The reason is so that you can take it out without too much effort in the spring... if you get to take it out, that is! This year we could not do it in spring because a robin nested cosily into it, and we had to wait for the fledglings to leave the nest.

Steps in the covering of the fig

After one trailer full of bracken, we just needed a bit more for the front

Fig in pots under cover

To complete our education on figs, we were taken round to the fig collection we have in pots under
cover in the greenhouse: they need free draining compost but regular watering and feeding, because in their natural dry habitat they spread far and wide to look for their nutrients.

There is plenty of information online to grow figs both outdoors and in pots:

RHS fig plant profile
Grow your own figs







I am fascinated by stories, and the one that caught my attention most today was one about there being volunteer figs around the country, outside bigger towns, on riverbanks, dating back to Victorian England. Apparently, dried figs were a popular festive food and they came seeded - the seed ended up in the sewers and were discharged in the rivers, where they germinated in the warmer microclimate.

Pollination and seed formation in figs is a very complex thing, for one the flower are enclosed in the syconium, so they are not easily accessed. But tiny - 1mm - wasps have co-evolved with the plant in its natural environment to enter through the fig's ostiole (the opening opposite the peduncle) and pollinate it while using the syconium as a breeding pod. That's amazing and if you want to read more about it I found some great sources.

•  A quick guide to fig and fig wasps
• Figweb: figs and fig wasps, a whole website on the amazing symbiotic relationship
• A scientific paper on co-evolution of dioecious figs and fig wasps
• A faboulous film on the sycamore fig (Ficus sycomorus) ecosystem

Seeds?

But what I have not been able to check out is the statement that only figs from their native environments contain (viable) seeds because there are no suitable wasps in the UK.

I sliced open one of the figs we removed from the tree while working on it, and I can see what look like seeds. Are they?

Some of the fig cultivars we grow in the UK are parthenocarpic: does that mean they produce no seed or unviable seed?

I could not find a precise answer. If anyone knows and wants to put me out of my misery... :)

Digging

Digging. An activity I have traditionally quite enjoyed for the pleasure of physical exercise and that I have regularly undertaken on my plot, which is ridden with perennial weeds (couch grass, bindweed, creeping buttercup). It is also an activity I started to question when studying soil for my level 3 exams, the reason being it disrupts earthworms tunnels (which I gather they dislike) as well as the habitat of the rest of the microbiota, severing those all important micorrhyzae.

So I'm still undecided what is best: digging that organic matter into the soil (some say deep down through double digging so as to make the soil more porous and make life easier for roots, especially on heavy soils, like my plot's is) or layering it on the top, suppressing weeds and leaving worms and biota to do their thing, as it would normally happen in nature, with fallen leaves and other organic debris (as deep roots are mainly for stability awhile shallow roots get most nutrients)?

Vegetable plots are rather artificial environments anyway, the soil is compacted and weeds (especially ruderals) abound of bare ground, so digging has traditionally been recommended to bury the weeds and aerate the soil while breaking any pans.

Correct size of spade

First of all, after making sure one is safe and properly equipped (especially boots), one has to find a spade adequate to one's own height, roughly to the top of one's hip. I understood why I had only seed long handled spade in Italy: outside the UK, a spade is not generally a digging tool. In Italy they use a tool called "zappa", which is apparently harder to work as you use it as a pickaxe then twist it with the soil in.

Step one: fill a barrow

Then one needs a barrow, where they will store the first row
of digging, which needs to be a spit dip and a spade width's wide.





Any matter that needs diggin in should be spread before starting usually to the rate of one barrow every 2 sqm (but never mix manure and lime because they release ammonia, which is a polluting gas and which takes away all the nitrogen; you need at least three weeks between one and the other).

The next step is to find how much soil you can comfortably lift, and dig linear strips, every spadeful roughly the same amaount of soil, filling with it the trench ahead of one (the first one being that which went into the barrow). And so on until the end of the area that needs digging, finishing by filling the last remaining strip with soil from the barrow.

A perfectly done, and a less skilfully dug bed side by side

I and my fellow trainees had a go. It was really clear that my technique fell short of the perfection our teacher possessed: in fact, his finished bed was even, without dips and bumps, while mine was rather rough, because I could not calibrate the amount of soil I lifted evenly enough. That will require some raking before sowing... and I will need more practice! That is why I'm here, after all.



Wisley has rather a sandy soil, which can be dug throughout the winter, from October and through to March. Heavy soil are best dug earlier on, up until November, so that rain and frost break up any lumps. But I also find bare ground over winter a heresy myself: you should see how all the topsoil is washed away on my plot, every year in the winter, leaving behind a sea of white stones, the chalk and flint on the surface. It is quite a disconcerting sight...

We were also instructed that some crops like carrots dislike recently disturbed soils, so planning in advance is certainly a takeaway for me.

About earthworms, I found this very interesting blog post