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

Thanks for temperature info. Yesterday I dumped two bags of shredded hardwood mulch at the base of each of three young figs. On two of them I tied up the tops and wrapped with burlap. Not sure that does anything but will see. Last year piling leaves three feet high did not prevent tops from dying to the ground.

I sure hope it does because the box I used is narrower than that one. One of those boxes that trees are shipped in the spring. Tall and skinny. But I did put a wire cage out side of it and stuffed that too. So hopefully that will help too.

Thank you, Bob! You are too funny! I don’t think we are easy pppl by any means but thank you both for the “easy’ comment. We are actually 2 very stubborn couple who wants things set in our own ways but we had to find ways to get what we want, or trying hard to prove our points.

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I’m still trying to figure out just how much I like figs. Here’s my outside fig- put a wire cage down and filled it with dry leaves (three times until they settled).

My potted figs are in here- no lower than 40 degrees all winter.

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Here are some figs, young kakis, and pakistan mulberries I brought in for the winter. I estimated only bringing in about 20 pots, but it turned out to be more like 40. Not sure how that doubled :sweat_smile:.

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You think you got troubles now, wait when you use larger pots, another thing, don’t read too much the wrong stuff.

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You should use some kind of protection to line up, like cardboard before you fill up with leaves.

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Are you saying I should line the sides with cardboard?

Not necessarily cardboard, rain and snow have a tendency to compact the leaves Groundtemps need to rise in the winter.Mulching around the tree retard ground freezing. A lot of little things could help, like 1/4 " Styrofoam works better than cardboard.

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Using what is basically a moving blanket insulated low tunnel with a very small space heater inside. Basically 10’ conduit bent to a 4.5’ tall and 2.5’ wide arc. Placed over top of that is 6 mil clear poly - which makes a low tunnel. Then for winter protection I cover the whole thing with some Harbor Freight moving blankets (they are decently thick and about 5.5 lb ea.) and then a tarp. The small heater (or pipe heating cable in the future) is managed by a temperature controller to keep the temperature above 20°F.

The plan is to grow my figs in a row and then cut them down to 4.5’ when they go dormant and get hit by 2 or 3 frosts. Then about 4-6 weeks before last frost remove the tarp and moving blankets and start keeping the temps above 45°F to get them waking up from dormancy.

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figs that have been inground can tolerate 17 degrees with no protection.
wrapped in fiberglass mine survived 2 nights of -1 with 10% dieback.

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I did this last year as well. Got down to -2. No issues. Olympian, Chicago hardy and brown turkey.

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Is that hay? That’s how they do it in Romania.
http://figs4funforum.arghchive.com/post/fig-orchard-in-svinita-romania-7478470

Also, can you tell Olympian and Brown Turkey apart? There are a few different BTs but my Olympian looked just like English Brown Turkey.

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Actually it’s pine needles. Looks like it could be hay I suppose from all the scattered clippings of last of season bush hogging the pastures.

And no, I can’t really tell the difference between Olympian and Brown Turkey, at least in terms of how the bush/tree look. Now when ripe my Olympian’s seem more yellow.

I saw some cones but those are some really big needles! I bet they work great!

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Wow I’m surprised that protection could take -2. Did it die back to ground and came back? Now I feel silly wrapping up my Chicago Hardy with so many different layers.

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Yes!! Some huge needles up to 10-12 inches long. Big pine forest on Fort Campbell I harvest them from. Enough to fill up multiple football fields if one had the notion.

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Had some die back but not all the way too ground. Did it exactly as in photo last year and did have that -2 in early January. They pulled through better than I expected.

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I did something similar with pine needles last year, but mine died to the ground (same as the ones with leaves). Maybe it was that the temps went lower for me, somewhere in the -8F or -10F range.

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I make cages for year round protection with welded wire fencing like this
image

I surrounded a tree and filled it with mulch and then tarped it and tied the tarp on tightly with rope. I’ll see how it does.

Dax

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