Page 25 - Simply Vegetables Spring 2021

The Common Fig (Ficus carica)
RON BENFIELD
I have always wanted to grow a fig tree. I knew that the roots needed to be restricted but did not want to build a pit. On seeing a root control bag advertised in a catalogue, which would restrict the roots of a fig, I thought, just the job I can plant the tree in the bag, dig a hole and put the bag in the hole.
The idea was to grow it as a fan on an inside corner between my house and a six foot high fence. I spoke to Mr. Deacon and he supplied me with a plant with two nice breaks on it. I planted the tree in the bag, dug a hole and placed the bag in the hole on the 21st March 2014. The fig I chose was a Brown Turkey,
Speaking to Gerry Edwards later in the year while he was judging at the Dorset County Show I told him what I had done and he told me that the roots do escape from those bags and if it were to grow 10 feet in a season I would know that it had escaped.
My instructions from the RHS Training and Pruning book was to stop it after it had made five leaves. Well, three leaders had reached over 8 feet before it had made 5
leaves. There was no doubt it had escaped. That winter, in the dormant season, I cut
off all the ties and dug out around the bag and sure enough there were a lot of roots coming out of the bag. I cut away all of
these roots and with the help of a long piece of timber and using the fulcrum and lever method I lifted the tree a few inches out of the hole and then made the hole deeper and wider. I put some crocks into the bottom of the hole and let the tree back down, retying the branches to the canes. I then built a pit with some old bricks and back filled with soil.
Over the next few years, one by one I
cut off the breaks down to a manageable size and by notching some of the dormant buds I managed to get some decent shoots growing. I am also stopping the breaks after 4 or 5 leaves. I now have a good frame of branches.
This year 2020 I picked 10 delicious figs from my tree. As you probably know the best way to use the fruit grown in our gardens is to wait until they are ripe, pick them and eat them. Exquisite.
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