This explains something that perplexed me last year: preventing dieback on my Chicago Hardy pushed the main crop harvest up six weeks! I didn’t use this method to do it, though.
@alan , have you posted this on any of the fig fora? If not, may I do so? I’ll be sure to give you credit.
I also have a couple questions:
How can people deter voles and other bark-eating vermin from nesting in or tunneling into the soil/mulch mound and girdling the tree? This happened to both of the jujube trees I mulched super heavily (8" deep) last year.
Is there a risk that the nodes of a fig tree under such a mound might hormonally “switch gears” and grow roots instead of buds, like what happens when we root cuttings.
Best method I have heard of for keeping figs alive in Wisconsin winters came from a guy who’s family was from the Mediterranean somewhere. They pruned the roots on two sides of the fig trees so they could bend the tree down to the ground and put a sheet of plywood onto of the tree. They piled stuff on top of the plywood to insulate and keep the tree buried.
I see that several people suggested that (i.e. buried) above.
There is a lot of slop in that AI stuff, the one thing that gets me the most is the “But a foot of soil never drops below the freezing point of wet earth—usually 20–28°F , even in subzero weather.” I wish that were true, it make spring so much easier if the ground were diggable.
I control voles with rodent bait stations and 4 Tom Cat squares.
It doesn’t matter if they begin the process of growing roots- that won’t go far if you wait until late fall to do this. Pull away the dirt and any tiny roots that have formed will dry up with very little wasted energy.
yeah i agree theres a bunch of nonsense in it. i called out the main one with the “figs dont fruit on old wood one” because not mentioning youre killing your breba crop is crazy. I mean sure even if youre not purely relying on breba crops for ripening any figs cause of short seasons, its still killing half your harvest and shortening your season.
also the dont need the tree, just the buds. what does that even mean. thats the tree on the tree and the buds are less cold hardy than the trunk.
The concept is fine, i mean if you dont want to preserve them you can cut it low and protect every season a lot easier, but this isnt groundbreaking. But i think its missing the point
Soil temps even a couple inches down do stay much warmer than above ground temps. Roots are killed at much higher temps than tops for most species that grow in winter climates.
I find I get an awful lot of slop info from humans as well, but they don’t respond to being corrected as well as a “robot”. When you contradict CHAT the system digs deeper… but to get good results you have to have certain knowledge and word communication skills.
The whole reason your method works is because the soil is so much warmer than above ground air during winter… it is a very common one I’ve been reading about since I first started growing figs in the northeast after moving here from S. CA. decades ago.
Tilting down fig trees and covering them with dirt or anything… we all know that method and it’s a lot of work. I’ve already tested my method by accident, but only elevated the soil by 8" or so. I got a pretty good crop from two trees frozen down to that. What I learned form CHAT is that this method is used all over the world, just not in Italy or the U.S.
My hang up is the " “But a foot of soil never drops below…" part. I don’t disagree with your points. Upnorth cold is a different beast than many people realize. In Milwaukee I will have freezes and thaws, In Mercer I have a freeze and a thaw.
This last spring I removed a brush pile to create a fenced in garden. I took a week off in mid May… by brush pile I mean logs, stumps, boulders, etc. (like 6 feet tall and 30ft wide). The ground under that pile was so frozen that I couldn’t till it. It completely surprised me that i assumed the pile would insulate the ground, didn’t realize that the cold would penetrate that deep and the pile would insulate the underground glacier.
Chat GPT seems kinda sweet on you… " Great question — and I really appreciate how precisely you frame it"… looks like AI will send you to the nicer labor camp when the terminators come for the rest of us.
There is a lot of focus on conspiracy but I think (and CHAT agrees with me ) that the real danger is a sudden and drastic reduction in the need for labor, and I mean all kinds of labor… lawyers, surgeons, professors, you name it- AI is going to vastly reduce the number of highly skilled workers as well as low at a speed never seen before in the short history of our civilization.
Whether we create heaven or hell out of it depends a lot on us, and I have more faith in AI than my own species- especially the types who will own most of its power- from my view, many seem to be addicts of power and consumption and the dose need only increases. Addiction generally destroys empathy with the truly powerful drugs. . . .
You are speaking of a single anecdote and I don’t know if the brush captured the soils warmth at all. I have found that here it doesn’t require much airy mulch to prevent the soil from freezing at all, even when air temps go into the negative teens.
CHAT was speaking of my Z6. These days we generally don’t go below maybe -7F and it passes very quickly.
That is exactly what I piled at the base of my trees the one winter that I was concerned enough to go to the extra step in order to protect them. I’ll likely do it again in the future when I feel that there is reason for concern. I didn’t bother to rake it away the next year and just let it decompose over time.
Yes, my bubble wrap taped to fencing structure failed me because I stupidly placed an airy mulch over the soil (compost actually) that saved the base of my trees last year- the mulch probably killed the tops. However, making and anchoring that structure is a much much bigger job than simply piling up soil and mulching your mound. Plenty of small bearing wood tends to grow at the base of fig trees, but it isn’t productive if its shaded by higher wood.
Until we try this method we won’t know if leaving more tree actually produces significantly larger crops. and frankly, a single nicely producing fig tree produces all my wife and I are likely to eat- and we both love figs.
Last year, the damaged trees did produce fruit somewhat later than my 3rd tree which is growing in an inground bag. I moved it into my unheated but well insulated well house that is built into the side of a hill, so rarely freezes inside.
Tomorrow I will use my method to attempt to protect a fig tree owned by Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively. I hope it works- they are currently my only celebrity clients and, you know, having famous customers makes me feel a little famous. Celebrity stardust.
Don’t care enough not to try this experiment that I am already certain will work well enough for them… they are pretty spotty at harvesting fruit, not usually living at the site of the orchard.
For those that prefer tipping or moving trees to protect them from cold, I recommend using heavy felt in-ground bags, something that holds at least 20 gallons of soil. For tippers, this should be perfect- you can quickly tip them over with a heavy spade. I’ve used a heavy spade and such bags for years to pop them out of the ground an move them easily, leaving what ever roots not ripped off on the outside of the bag and wrapping the balls with tarps where I store them, keeping the soil moist all winter.
Burying with dirt and then removing the dirt in spring sounds like a lot more work then covering with leaves and tarp.
Bury lowest 12 to 18 inches would not work well for me. From experience, lower thick branches grow and leaf out for me much slower the younger upper branches and my season is short for figs.
What also works if you like them jn gground is taking a sawzall and sawing a circle around it, using a pitchfork to pop it out and laying it on its side.
This method will transform your trees into low growing bushes and you will not know how it works without trying it. You are observing the lower part of the tree when it is shaded, small wood will automatically form without the tops.
I spent a great deal of time pushing leaves down within a fence frame and between branches in the last few years I’ve protected trees by doing this. The leaves need to be tightly packed, I think, or they will quickly sag down below the wood you are trying to protect- like with the first snow. It is amazing how much leaves it requires… it is difficult for me to bill my customers for the work because you can’t really see it after it’s done.
It will take me 5 minutes to remove the dirt- I have pretty light soil and anyone could use a light mix of their own device. That’s what I will be using tomorrow- straight compost and sand mix covered with wet shredded wood mulch (dark brown from age)- about 4 cubic feet of each held in place with a fence ring. 10 minutes to assemble, same to dissemble.
Bubble wrap is not very insulating on its own, maybe R=1 to 1.5 per layer. So your bubble wrap may have failed because it was only bubble wrap. I had mixed results with a double layer of bubble wrap but then almost flawless results with bubblewrap plus fiberglass battes (R=13) glued to the inside.
Yes, it is a lot of work. And once you’re done pruning the tree to fit inside the cover, the tree is about the same size (and productivity) as a tree in a 20 g pot. Moving a 20 g pot into a garage is much easier than building a cover. The main advantage of an in-ground tree in the north is eliminating the need to water. If you can automate the watering of potted trees, then growing figs in pots is much easier.
I can guarantee that there’s no variation that hasn’t been tried by commercial growers looking to boost production without boosting costs. The Japanese use a low cordon method where a single trunk supports 2-4 permanent horizontal branches, each bearing short spurs at 6-12" intervals. Each spur is permitted to grow one fruiting vertical. Each fruiting vertical can grow 6-10’ high with a leaf and a fig every few inches.
Your proposed method would be WAY more productive if the short trunk supported such cordons. In theory, you could cover both the trunks and the cordons with soil or mulch. HOWEVER, you would have to create some foolproof method for preventing mice and voles from burrowing into the soil / mulch and eating the bark.
My experience was a situation where the upper fig tree branches where not well covered and the upper branches died. I noticed growth staring on the low branches so I cut off the top branches. Those low branches grew but where very late in producing figs and I only had a few ripe ones by the end of the season even though they weren’t shaded by upper branches.
I’m not trying to be snarky here, but why do we care what CHAT says about protecting figs in cold climates?
I come to this forum to get the opinions and facts from experienced and knowledgeable growers. I couldn’t care less about what CHAT says. if I did, I would just go to CHAT directly, not here.
All the content on this forum is searchable from google. I would hate for some noob to be perusing the internet and stumble on an expert here parroting what CHAT says and misinterpret it as gospel from a seasoned expert. just my 2 cents.
As for winter protecting figs, I’m not in a particularly cold climate (zone 7b/8a), but my plan has been to keep my figs potted for a few years and stored in my garage over the winter until they are stronger with a thicker central leader, then plant in ground and provide no winter protection.
I just put all 22 of mine back in the garage last weekend and none are in ground yet, so I’ll know more in the next year or 2 as I plan to put 12-15 of them in the ground next spring that were started as cuttings in 2022-2023 and grown in pots.
I do the same in zone 7a/b. Lets talk figs sometime! I also have about 20something varieties (rooting many cuttings rn ) main thing though is remmeber ground space is premium so plan it out well unless you got tons of land
) that the real danger is a sudden and drastic reduction in the need for labor, and I mean all kinds of labor… lawyers, surgeons, professors, you name it- AI is going to vastly reduce the number of highly skilled workers as well as low at a speed never seen before in the short history of our civilization.
