Tips on Growing Fig Tree

There is no doubt that most people are too kind to figs and thus they don’t crop. They have been grown successfully in Great Britain since the time of Henry VIII. There are signs that the Romans may have brought the fig with them hundreds of years before.

Morello cherries are usually budded, though there is a variety in Kent known as the Wye Morello that grows well on its own roots.

The cooking cherries can be fed more than the sweet cherries because they must be encouraged to produce new wood. If they are mulched with straw a foot deep, a fish fertilizer may be given at 3 oz. to the sq. yard, in February and again in August. The mulch is undoubtedly the most important thing because the fruit cannot swell properly unless the fruits can get all the moisture they need. Where mulching is not carried out watering has to be done regularly during hot summers, in June and July.

Morellos can be planted as bush trees, 18 feet apart, but they are very popular as fan-trained trees on north walls, at 15 feet apart. Time to plant is November, while the soil is still warm. Buy two-year-old bush trees or three-year-old fan- trained trees.

To be sure of a crop, the fig should be planted against a south warm wall; a loam overlying chalk or hard limestone is good because this discourages the production of tap roots. I had seen figs do well on a thin soil over sand.

Anyway, it helps if the roots can be restricted, and so many dig out a hole a yard square and to the depth of 2 feet 6 inches, and then put into the bottom of the hole brickbats, trodden in tightly, to ensure good drainage and to discourage the growth of tap roots. Squares of asbestos roofing sheets cut to size can then be placed in position to line the sides of the square hole before the soil is put back.