By Kim Kelly and Rachel Foster
When my husband and I first arrived in Eugene almost 18 years ago, I was thrilled to find a monthly gardening column by Rachel Foster in Eugene Weekly. I read everything she wrote and tried to follow her advice.
In 2004, Rachel wrote a book titled All About Gardens consisting of many of her previous columns. I have also devoured that publication — dedicated to the late owner of the Weekly, Anita Johnson, for whom Rachel worked as a landscape designer for 30 years.
We are lucky to live in an area where it is normal to grow our own food. This month, Rachel advises on the delicacy of the fig.
— Kim Kelly
Some people like figs, some don’t. Those of us who like them tend to like them very much. There is no other fruit like a fresh, ripe fig, straight off the tree and warm from the sun. Bite into it and the word sumptuous comes to mind.
Besides being delicious, figs are peculiar. Why are there no flowers? Without flowers, how can there be fruit? Well, there are flowers — in fact they are very numerous. But they are small, weird — and inside the fruit! As you might guess, figs require no pollination.
Since figs are at their very best just off the tree, it pays to have a fig tree in your own garden. Some fig varieties recommended for the Willamette Valley are Black Mission, Desert King and Brown Turkey. Figs are easy to grow, and very easy to propagate from cuttings. They are not picky about soil, but they do need sun and decent drainage, and they benefit from some protection from the cold. A position near the house works well. A really hard and prolonged freeze may kill the top growth entirely, but frost-killed fig trees usually sprout again from the base. At worst you’ll lose a year or two of fruit.
That has happened to our own fig tree only once in 15 years. There are now two fig trees in our garden. The second, only a few years old, was grown from a cutting off fig tree number one as backup, in case number one is ever lost. Should that happen, we wouldn’t know how to replace it as we don’t know what variety it is! The fruits are almost as large as a small pear, purplish brown on the outside, with luscious pink flesh, suggesting the variety Brown Turkey.
For best results with fig trees, pruning is essential. Most books recommend growing a fig as a multi-stemmed bush. That method has the advantage that you can prune back half the stems one year, then the other half the next. The uncut stems will bear fruit, traditionally called breba, well before figs appear on new growth on the cut-back stems, giving you an earlier harvest.
My original tree is growing in a tight spot, so I grow it as a single trunk with a few structural side branches. Each spring I prune it very hard, cutting the previous year’s growth almost all the way back to the main woody structure, which remains about 7 feet high. This means I miss out on the breba that would grow on the previous year’s wood. Instead I have a later and longer picking season, harvesting figs that grow on the current season’s abundant new growth. My younger tree is beginning to give me a few breba because I have not pruned it yet. But it is the later, longer and more luscious crop, on hard-pruned tree number one, that we really cherish.
If you want a fig tree, Rachel recommends calling Down to Earth or the Little Red Farm in Springfield to order one. Fall is the ideal time to plant so now is the time to order. I have also bought plants that are available now and kept them in their pots, out of direct sun (as the sun can heat the pot itself, damaging the plant roots) and planting in the Fall. Remember to water, no matter when you put the plant in the soil.
The Garden Palette is a monthly column coordinated by Kim Kelly. Writers include longtime EW garden columnist Rachel Foster, Master Gardener John Fischer, arborist Alby Thoemsin and Cynthia Lafferty of Doak Creek Native Plant Nursery. Have a gardening question or tip? Email Gardening@EugeneWeekly.com.