Show your photo of how you over winter your figs and trees

Tony, since you bought way too many longans I trade you for a bag of Jabo,s, well I guess I know the answer. Longans don’t go well with Corona.

Sent you a pm.

This year, I’m insulating my greenhouse and storing most of my trees there. I figure after the insulation, it shouldn’t be too hard keeping everything above the high 20s/low 30s. A few smaller or more cold sensitive trees will stay in the garage. I filled all my available window space overwintering a pineapple guava, some pineapples, my succulents, and my not quite dormant ginger and turmeric.

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Johnny,

What is your typical Winter low temperature there?

Tony

I’m in zone 6b (on the cusp of 7a) so it’s supposed to be able to get down to 0F. It doesn’t seem to go below the teens that often, at least not that I can remember.

Do you have any figs inground? If so how did they do last winter? All of mine lost smaller branches or branch tips died back several inches.

I do have a few in ground. I seem to get a fair bit of die back unless I protect them smartly. The tree that I have in a bottomless trash can filled with mulch had zero die back in the mulched-covered parts. The other trees which I wrapped in landscape cloth and tarps died back from mold.

Here is mine. About 50 trees jammed together in my basement. It’s too dark with just my regular lights on so here is a photo of them under grow lights. I have an additional 2 dozen trees outside and in my living room.

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@jkuo Did you put a lid on your bottomless trash can, after filling with mulch?

I actually have the bottom end up, so I can’t put the lid on. I wrapped the top part sticking out of the trash can and let the tarp hang over the sides of the trash can. I think I tied a loop of string around the tarp and trash can to keep wind from just blowing the tarp away. Either that or I stuff the edge of the tarp into the trash can and weighted it down. I don’t remember which I did or maybe I did one of those options one year and the other the next. Either way, I tried to keep excessive precipitation from getting into the mulch without having an airtight seal.

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Figs tucked away in random corners of the garage for the winter. Zone 6b, but the garage is connected to the house so the coldest it gets is ~35.

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Here go most of the containers, still soaking wet so they weighed a ton, my back is going to be stiff tomorrow. 4
stake body truck loads.

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It’s probably just the lighting but that photo looks like something from one of my nightmares. Hahaha

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100 year old barn basement, there was a owl living in there a few years ago which made it extra spooky :wink:

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That’s a heavy duty system!
In my zone I can get away with leaving them outdoors but I bring some of the more tender/young trees indoors.

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If I were to leave pots in my cellar which stays around 50 degrees through the winter, would the plants stay dormant?

It will stay dormant if there is no light.

Is below 20 degrees roughly when damage starts to in-ground figs?

And if your husband ever misses, at least they get fertilized!

I was thinking that the husband is easy going to deal with it. :slight_smile:

I wouldn’t be too confident that they will all stay dormant. I think it may depend on the type of plant. I’ve had low chill blueberries start to bloom even without much light (not complete dark) and in the 50 degree area.

This year, I drove all my potted figs, pomegranates, and blueberries (mostly figs) over to the garage at another property which stays more in the 35-40F. Hopefully that will keep things more dormant, as well as free up space in the garage for me to hit badminton birdies against he wall. It did take 2 SUV loads to get the plants moved, but the property is only 2-3 minutes away, so it wasn’t bad.

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I was just reading about that online and opinions seem to differ- from 10F to 30F. Quite a range. I don’t think it has gone below 25F (or maybe 22ish?) here. But the forecast has 17F and 14F for the next two nights after tonight, so I’m trying to get everything protected.

So far, I’ve collected 3 carloads of leaves. In the past, I’d go around with buckets and fill up that way, but this year I started early enough that there are still some bagged leaves out. It’s much easier to load up the car by just tossing the bags in. My wife was laughing at me and wondering what the people would think-they don’t need to wait for the town, as some crazy guy is picking up their leaves.

Here’s how I protected one raised bed of figs.

Cardboard first, propped up with sticks and stones.

I then put 4-6" of woodchips on the bottom. Then filled the rest with leaves.

At the end, I put a tarp over the whole thing and held down the sides with stones.


I also had to patch a few spots in the tarp, but tape should work ok for that…

I think it was easier for some of the stand-alone figs. I just used a single box to hold the leaves. I’m not sure if this one will work, as the box is pretty narrow.

I tied some of them up to better fit in the box:

I should mention that I had a lot of dieback last year (to close to the ground) when just using leaves (without the cardboard- just a bit of fence to hold the leaves in) and without the tarp. I’ll post how this works.

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