I have a brown turkey fig here in ground. I don’t know which if any type of brown turkey it is. It came from fruitwood nurseries. Crazy thing is I did bark check a couple days ago, and it’s still green. Had enough protection under the snow bank it was in so far for at least part of the top to survive, even though we got to -21. I planted it under the southern eve of my roof, so it’s buried in lots of snow, and is also in a hot spot. Whether it’ll survive now that a lot of the snow is melted off in the last week I don’t know. A rabbit bit off the growing tips this November, before I could catch him and make him acquainted with batter and hot grease. I also have a Chicago Hardy, and Florea which I’ve been growing in pots. I am tired of messing around with pots, and they will be going to live outside next to the brown turkey this spring.
when i 1st. tried over winter protection, i just blew my snow on top of it with no other protection and it made it through its 2nd winter with no dieback and we saw several -30 that winter. i thought the snow would crush it but it didn’t. after i saw the breba crop wouldn’t ripen i stopped trying to protect it. still keeps coming back with 0 care. it might be toast this winter as we had very little snow until early feb. and the frost went 5ft. down.
I concur with everything @ncdabbler says in this post. Also I’d extend his comments about Chicago Hardy to Mt Etna’s in general. I find that they lignify wood and drop leaves earlier than other varieties. That makes them immune to early freezes.
BTW, there have been extensive discussions in the OurFigs forum related to winter protection for figs. I probably posted 10,000 words myself. You should check it out and save a lot of reinventing the wheel here.
Will do. I just signed up over there this week actually. Looking forward to descending down the figgy rabbit hole.
I have a 5 year old in-ground Chicago Hardy here in zone 6a illinois. I have never had it ripen a single fruit. For a couple years I bent over and buried the whole tree so it didn’t lose any limbs over the winter, still no fruit. Contrast that to my potted CH figs, which bear many hundreds of fruits every year.
In ground it’s just too vigorous of a grower. The figs take forever to form if the tree is growing quickly, so there’s not nearly enough time for them to ripen.
It’s hard to tell what’s going on for sure without seeing the tree, but I never had a problem from vigorous growth per se. If anything, that produced more fruit. What you don’t want is a million small shoots. Sometimes you have to rub off buds or remove young growth so that you’re left with only a few shoots. The tree will channel its energy into these shoots, which will grow long and thick, bearing lots of fruit.
Sounds like something has happened to cause a complete loss of your breba crop on that outdoor Chicago Hardy.
Even if the limbs dont appear dead there could be cold damage to the fruit buds. This doesnt seem very likely but just throwing it out there…
I haven’t tried growing figs in ground here in z6 as I don’t think it would be very successful. We do grow chicago hardy in 10 gallon pots that get sheltered in the garage for winter. The pot size limits the tree size of course, maybe 3 or 4 feet tall and wide. Couple dozen figs per tree.
However, I wanted to share a photo of my neighbor’s chicago hardy. This is what I want to do someday! His large container method is so successful!
It’s planted in a 250 gallon container and gets moved into his barn for the winter. Obviously the huge tree makes way more fruit than my smaller trees. However, I was surprised to find that the fruit was also significantly larger and better tasting than the same figs from my small trees. Perhaps I’m just not managing my trees optimally in some way, however I suspect my trees are simply too stressed being root bound in a small pot. Sure, the large tree needs significant storage space for the winter and equipment to move it…but I bet he gets 200 to 300 figs off it!
I’ve tried figs in containers from 3 gallons to something exceeding 100 gallons. My conclusion is that there is a “sweet spot” in the middle. Pots that are small (e.g., <10 g) tend to dry out quickly (which retards fruit development) and also tend to get root bound quickly. Pots that are large (e.g., >25 g) are just too tough to move and manage. Believe me, you don’t want to root prune a >25 g root ball. Moreover, there are diminishing returns. I can easily get 50-100 figs from a tree in a 15 g pot, so why should I be excited about 250 figs from a 250 g pot???
[Some of this is pure geometry. Sun hits the outer surfaces. With a big tree, the interior shaded spaces are somewhat wasted.]
So over time, I have migrated to the middle. Right now all of my potted trees are in #15, #20, and #25 pots. Honestly, the 25’s are right at the boundary of my ability to manage them. I have 10 trees in 25’s, and I only move them with a hand-truck on flat paved ground. There’s another ~70 in 15’s and 20’s.
I am in zone 7b southern middle TN.
Have a Chiago Hardy fig… in ground planted since 2020.
This is a pic of it from last fall.
Those taller shoots are 12 ft tall… the last half of the fruiting season I harvest from a step ladder.
We get 400 figs from it in a average year.
We normally get first hard frost early to late November… it is usually dormant, dropped leaves… early to mid December.
Once dormant I cut it back to short stumps (12-18 inch) and protect those stumps only over winter.
Note… I may let 10 shoots grow… but only keep 5 or 6 of those over winter.
This shows how I protect it.
Those cut off stumps I surround with nice and dry hay bales… i wrap the stumps with chicken wire to keep rodents at bay… i fill the middle with nice dry wood or bark chip. I cover it all with a tarp and tie that on good with a rope. A couple more hay bales on top.
Since 2020 when planted our coldest winters have been 2F aand 3F. No problems surviving that.
If you successfully protect stumps like that… early to mid April those stumps will be sending up shoots.
I normally limt the shoots to 2 per stump. So if I protect 5 stumps over winter… will have 10 shoots going up next season.
If you dont protect stumps like that (and I did not my first year)… it will send up shoots from the roots… but they will come up early to mid May (about a month later).
You get less figs, they start ripening later…
TNHunter
Whether practical or not, your neighbor’s fig is one impressive potted plant!!!
Mr. Trev has set the goal I aspire to with my CH. beautiful tree. Can’t wait for my figs to be that productive!
Don’t know if that is a fresh fig compote of sorts or what, but the display with fresh figs, crusty bread and Brie makes me want to be your best friend and bring some of my garden produce to your table, esp as I’m located in southern mitten 
Never have I ever seen a breba crop even form on my Chicago Hardy. This includes all my potted trees that spend the winter in a garage that’s never below freezing.
I get lots of Breba on my Desert King, but not CH.
in ground or container?
Desert King is a San Pedro type fig that produces abundant brebas. I have one in a large pot that produces 80-100 annually. Chicago Hardy is a Common Fig that produces few brebas and tends to drop them before they ripen. Some Common Fig varieties will ripen a relative handful of brebas. A few (e.g., European Brown Turkey) will produce a decent breba crop. Note that success with brebas requires a pruning strategy that preserves the most current year’s growth.
how are you protecting it in your zone or is it not needed? also, what form have you pruned it to?
Yeah, winter temps drop below +10 F every winter and below 0 F most winters. Those temps will kill unprotected fig trees, or at least the top growth. I have >70 trees in pots. They go into a garage for the winter.
Pretty much all my fig trees are pruned to a modified central leader, headed at ~3’, with 3-4 main scaffolds that fork once or twice depending on pot size. The Common figs are permitted to grow roughly 16 / 20 / 24 fruiting verticals each season for a #15 / 20 / 25 pot. The Desert King is a little more complex just 'cause it’s bigger and I need to preserve some recent growth to produce brebas.
FYI I used to grow trees in the ground with very serious winter protection but I gave it up when the deer herd grew, which compelled them to put fig foliage on the menu. The potted trees grow inside a big fence; the in-ground trees were in a place where a fence wasn’t feasible.
afaik breba are on the end 1/3 to 1/4 of old growth, so two questions, is “old growth” only the previous years growth or can it be any old growth and how long would the growth need to be? could it be 12" and it would produce breba on the whole 12" branch or just the end?