Do you remember when you lived in RI and grew that meyer lemon? I loved that you did that! With modern technology and the know-how, we can grow anything anywhere. @fruitnut proved that growing water loving plants in West Texas. As the title says it-is-sad-but-trees-dont-always-pay-off-1500-for-figs-trees-and-not-one-fig though i could substitute the word fig for nearly any plant and it still be true. In my lifetime i bet i spent that much on tomatoes that didn’t work out. $1500 is about my yearly allowance to myself to buy novelties that never work out. I bought honeyberries again this year! That is the 7x with the same results. In the case of pawpaws, it took me several years to keep one alive. Now i can easily grow pawpaws. It takes me no extra work at all. The same can be done with figs it is a lot of work but it can be done.
I have done it. It is a matter of knowledge and sometimes initial investment.
Here is a great list @FascistNation gave us before he passed away
I can’t tell if the OP is serious or satire. I’m betting on satire because it’s a pretty funny compilation of the ways people fail when gardening. Either way, I have a visceral reaction when people who fail at gardening seem to blame the plant – it’s the trees that don’t pay off. It’s not the fig tree’s fault!
The formula for success is pretty simple, right? (1) Figure out what the plant needs. (2) Provide it.
I’m especially concerned that a post such as this one will deter other people from growing stuff. FWIW, here in RI I grow really good figs in pots. I started in 2012. I’ve had as many as 100 trees in pots but now I’m down to ~70. In a good season i’ve harvested 4000 figs but this season is down to ~2500. We eat some fresh – I’m eating some right now, give some to friends, dry most of the rest. This year I gave two batches of 8 dozen to a restauranteur friend who used them for a fig sauce. Eight dozen was part of one day’s harvest.
I focus on early-ripening varieties. I store the pots over the winter in garages, both heated and unheated. I grow them in full sun in a fenced area, covered with bird netting. I water every day or two, fertilize every few weeks. The trees do almost all the work.
There is a lesson in the OP: Life is a struggle. Pretty much every mammal, insect or bird is trying to eat either another mammal, insect or bird or, more commonly, a plant and/or its fruit. So you have to protect your garden from predation. And every living thing needs food and water as well as moderate temps; plants need sunshine. If the environment isn’t right, the plant dies. So the grower has to supply these requirements.
I think there is a lot of good info in this thread… AND I think when people post on GF, they would like assistance and encouragement, not criticism. One of the things I really like about GF community is how kind and supportive it is. That encourages folks to post when they have questions, problems and failures. I think it’s good to know about failures, and hope people will continue to post their experiences about what hasn’t worked. I am dipping my toe into potted figs in zone 5b and am grateful to the OP for sharing, in a humorous way, their experiences.
Tried cold hardy Chicago and other Zone 6 “friendly” figs in ground. Even insulated over winter w hay. 6 figs planted over 2 yrs- none survived. Gave up. Much better luck w Yates and Prok persimmons as my oddball trees to add to pluots, plums, pears, asian pears, apples, cherries, apricots, peaches, and nectarines.
Don’t feel too bad. I had super gnats kill over 200 cuttings this past season and I’m just finding out that some of my potting soil is terrible… I’ve had to resort back to miracle grow and sta-green because 30$ for 2 cubic ft of fox farm is ridiculous when the nurseries are getting it for 8$ per 2 cubic of ocean forest ft last i checked.
I bought some cuttings for 40$ multiple times and some that even came as 1 node from a reputable seller but since I’m new to the fig scene, i guess it didn’t matter how the cuttings came to me. Will stick to fruitnut, harvey, smatthew, and leann+Victor only from now on.
However, with failures come knowledge. I managed to get a 6 inch cutting up to over 4ft this season multiple times around and now i have over 50 that are hanging out and doing great. Figuring out which ones are worth it and which aren’t. I, too, have massive deer pressure as well as all the animals because I don’t chase them away. Eventually, everyone will have more than enough to eat.
I’ve been growing figs in 6B/7A without protection for about 5 years. I used to try to protect them and things ended up worse when I made a nice habitat for the mice/voles. The I decided to throw a bunch against the wall and see if any worked. I have a bunch of kinds of figs planted at half a dozen location (rental properties).
This one has been doing the best: Planted along the West wall of the building, not far from a window, sliding doors, a built-in AC, and a vent from the boiler room. Between all that, I haven’t seen significant dieback on this once since it was planted in 2020.
In general, ones near buildings do a lot better than ones in the open. Stone walls don’t seem to help much- you need a building that generates heat. I just did a rough count and have ~35 figs. But I do basically zero, other than picking them (I did try pinching tips- spending 30 seconds doing that is about my level of engagement with them ) . Some haven’t been productive at all, while other vary between a handful of figs in bad years to 5+ pounds in good years.
I hate growing figs in pots. I’m sure some people do great with it, but to me it is lots of work and even when things go somewhat well, I get ~5 figs. If your willing to put in some work, maybe make an enclosure with a small heat source and thermostat to keep things above 15-20F. Maybe like one of those things that keeps pipes from freezing up. And for the animals, lots of mouse traps in the enclosure. Or piles of poison (if you can find one that doesn’t harm the soil)…
I guess I’ve been lucky that most of these properties are inside town, so deer pressure is minimal/zero at most of them. I’ve only ever seen them at 2 of the properties, one it is hard for them and the 2nd is only occasionally visited (with better things to tempt the deer like mulberries).
I don’t think that would be as effective. You probably wouldn’t be running the dryer every night that gets cold. I think that one of the reasons that the location I have seems to do well is that there is a constant leak of a little heat from the house rather than a burst of warm air, followed by nothing. You might be better off planting the fig near a window which loses a bit of heat on a constant basis.
At another property, I planted a fig near the furnace exhaust. That gets very hot, but only when it is running. I had assumed that it would often be running when it is cold out, but it wasn’t enough to prevent die back on RDB, a fairly common hardy fig.
Seconded. A south facing wall that gets solar heating spring the day and radiates that heat at night (not to mention the soil heating you get in spots like that, is probably a safer bet.
Interior corners and other spots that have a building wall on two or more sides would be worth trying too if they get enough light and drainage.
okay! The dryer vent is near a leaky window though - so that might be a good plan anyway. It’s also a west facing wall - and it does get quite a bit of light - but I hadn’t really thought it through before.
In my head, I just thought south would be the only option since it’s always recommended. I don’t have a good south facing wall or air leak.
The neighbor just put their property on the market and I noticed that they installed a new mini-split heating/cooling system. Regrettably, they put the outside component only a driveway’s width away from my most productive fig. Heat pumps put out hot air in the summer (no problem for figs) and cold air in the winter (could be bad). And it looks like the fan pushes it right toward the fig. I guess this is the downside of growing in higher density areas. Neighbors’ actions can impact your growing conditions. On the positive, it is too high density for deer to roam through, so that makes things a lot easier.
At another property I’ve been harvesting Strawberry Verte. It’s a bit younger (planted May 2022), but has finally started to pump out figs. I think the south facing brick wall (with a window for winter warmth) that it is planted against is making it ripen faster. The only other Adriatic that I’ve grown is Adriatic JH, and the last time it produced figs was in 2020, ripening in November. Maybe AJH is a much later variety than SV, but from what I’ve seen online they aren’t that far apart, so maybe the spring/summer heat from the brick wall is speeding things along.
figs can certainly survive outside. Younger trees are indeed less hardy. Planting against the house helps, and bringing inside in a pot helps (they can live in a pot indefinitely). additionally most popular northern varieties fruit on new wood, so dying back to the ground every few years is not really a huge issue, youre keeping it small anyway.
Thats a lot of info out there about growing figs in colder climates and picking varieties that do well there and will ripen early.
Hello, all fruit growers! I’ve been busy and have not been able to follow the forum much. Just an update on the figs…
As I said earlier, I had bought chicken wire to keep the small animals out of the figs. It was run on the ground up 2 feet to overlap the 2 x 4 welded wire fencing. From a survey yesterday the small animals are still getting into the fig trees. They chewed up a VDB fig last week. They also ate up a small red mulberry. But the mulberry did not have chicken wire and has been chewed on all season. It could never get a decent start. Deer ate it, then the small animals started in. It had started to grow back but is now completely stripped of foliage. I’ll probably pull it out next season and put in something else.
I’m thinking the small animals may be getting in under the chicken wire around the figs. I didn’t see any burrowing, but the chicken wire is very flexible. Burying fencing for the in-ground figs is too much for me. If the figs survive the winter; I will run the 2x4 welded wire fence to the ground and overlap 1x1 cage fencing over the first 2 feet. That should make it pretty stiff and block small animals unless they burrow under the fence.
In 2026 I’m trying 3 potted figs in big pots. Not much room in the garage for overwintering them unless I park 1 car outdoors for the winter if I really wanted to. I could do it but need some positive results before suffering like that. Ice storms come and the car is frozen shut with a 1/4 inch of ice encapsulating it. I live like that for years. And any figs in pots left outdoors in the winter need complete protection or the deer will eat the fig branches down to the soil.
If you have seen my posts on deer cages maybe, you think I’m nuts. No, I’ve just been at it since 2008 and know the score from being taught at the school of hard knocks.
We just enjoyed 2 fresh harvested Chicago Hardy figs today. Our farm is at the top of Michigan. If we were in Maine we would be in the northern-most county. Don’t give up. You will figure out what works for your growing conditions, and then you’ll be set. So many of these sort of things just seem to require stubbornness and perseverance.
With fruit trees a certain persistence is definitely needed.
Everyone wants instant gratification so persistence (or stubborn pigheadedness) is a bit of a super power.
Not your exact situation but people rip out fig trees if they don’t produce for a couple of years.
My Pastilliere kept dropping figs for 5 years! Now it produces a huge number of high quality fruit and zero drops. I’m glad I did not pull it out like most people here did.
and I’m just finding out that some of my potting soil is terrible… I’ve had to resort back to miracle grow and sta-green because 30$ for 2 cubic ft of fox farm is ridiculous when the nurseries are getting it for 8$ per 2 cubic of ocean forest ft last i checked.
) . Some haven’t been productive at all, while other vary between a handful of figs in bad years to 5+ pounds in good years.
