Home & Garden: Crazy About Figs!

So many trials and tribulations! But when you get fig growing right… it makes all of the hard work worthwhile.

My dad tried desperately to grow figs in our yard in Farmingdale… the handful of figs that he would actually get to ripen were delicious, but just never enough. I remember his frustrations. It was years and years later that I would find myself walking in his shoes. The same frustration! I couldn’t even get any fruit on my plants!

I always loved figs, and I loved to garden, so I persevered. My trials at fig growing began about 15 years ago when a very kind Italian man went way into the back of his garden center and came out with a tiny little fig plant for me to get started. That little plant took quite a while to give fruit… probably because I didn’t know what I was doing. Thanks to YouTube and The Millennial Gardener, I’ve learned how to properly fertilize and water my figs, how to prune them, how to take cuttings, and how to keep my plants healthy and thriving. And best of all, how to harvest my figs.

And so, 18 fig trees later… Figmama,  as my family calls me, was born! Yes, we have 18 trees. Half of them potted, half in the ground. My husband, Greg, also known as Figaro–because he loves figs and playing guitar and singing–is my garden sidekick. We love eating figs fresh off the tree. That’s the best! After the birds and ants and even opossums eat their fair share of fruit, we get ready for picking figs. In late summer and throughout the fall, it’s harvesting time! Figuring out how we would eat all of these delicious morsels is the easy part!

We love fig pizza with prosciutto and arugula, figs and burrata, fig jam… We’ve baked fig muffins and cakes and stirred up some fig glazes on pork chops… Figs and gorgonzola and caramelized onions on flatbread, figs and walnut spaghetti… We have also enjoyed shaking up some fig martinis… ooh la!

And when the last fruits are harvested and the cold winds of winter start blowing… Wintering begins. Time for pruning and dormancy. Potted plants move into the garage, in-ground plants are covered and mulched. We pay attention to frost dates and plan for springtime when we begin all over again.

It’s a labor of love… a true fig adventure!