[Ag-eq] Figs

[Tracy Carcione]

My fig harvest started yesterday.  I never had figs before I came out East, 
but I love them now.  There's about an hour's grace between when they're 
ready to eat and when some critter finds them, but it's worth the trouble of 
checking often.  They're really big and plentiful this year, too.
When my fig tree was small, I kept it in a big pot, and put bags of leaves 
around it in the winter.  Then I got a pop-up greenhouse, and planted the 
fig where I could put the greenhouse over it in the winter.  Last year, the 
fig was too big for the greenhouse, so it was on its own, and it did fine. 
Some of the branch tips die back every winter, with new branches growing 
farther down, so it's more like a big bush than a tree.  It's easy to reach 
even the highest fruit, but I have to walk all around its wide self to find 
everything..  And sometimes the squirrels and birds find the fruit before I 
do.
I'm not worrying about preserving figs, though I know they dry well.  But 
I'm only getting 2 or 3 a day, so I just eat them right up.
I am getting good fruit crops this year, for some reason.
Tracy