At this time of the year the trees silvered-grey bark glows in the moonlight. On misty, dripping days, its sheer bulk and girth is a powerful image, like something out of Grimm’s Tales. I almost like the tree more in winter than in summer but its big-lobed leaves are quite lovely and great for providing shade; its fruit – well people have swooned for them.
Native to the Middle East and north-western Asia, it is one of the members of the moraceae family which includes, of course, the mulberry. Figs were one of the first fruit trees cultivated by man. Relatively fast growing, they will reach 10m tall and almost as wide, are good on poor soil and can form a lovely shady arbour. They like to stretch and spread, so give them room to develop beautifully rather than try and pinch them into too small a space where they cannot flaunt their magnificence. Sunshine lovers, give them at least eight hours a day; they will become very drought resistant with age. It is commonly said that watering a fig tree ruins the flavour of the fruits. Don´t plant them over a tiled area as falling fruits will be very messy! Bearing all that in mind, plant now and through the winter so that they are well established before the heat of next summer. The only other thing you need to decide is if it’s to be green or black – a personal choice, though I always feel the black have a slightly stronger flavour.
Fig trees are easy-care. No water, once established; no fertiliser and little or no pruning. Remove deadwood or a badly-positioned branch, but this is minor. Generally trouble free, they can get rust – a fungal infection that shows as reddish-brown spots on leaves. If it’s really troublesome, apply a fungicide like neem oil or copper fungicide.
There are several magical things about the fig that you may not know. Firstly, it can bear two crops a year; the spring crop is known as brevas/brebas, thus named from the Latin ‘bifera’ meaning twice-producing. The first crop develops on the previous year’s growth and fruiting is usually late May/early June. The autumn crop, ready from late September through to early November, forms on the current year’s growth and the fruits are generally smaller. Whilst there are named varieties, they are difficult to find; simply look for brevales for two crops a year and higueras for single croppers, which will produce very large fruits.
Not many fruit trees will give you two harvests a year, so that makes a fig pretty special. But there is an even more amazing side to a fig. Read on if you’re not squeamish. Firstly, the fig we eat is not strictly a fruit – it is the flower (much like we eat artichoke flowers and caper buds). Each of these internal flowers produces a single one-seeded, hard shelled fruit called achene and it is this that gives the fig its typical crunch when we eat it. So when we eat a fig, we are actually eating multiple fruits! The green or black orb we eat is called a syconium, from the Greek sykon meaning fig. Botanists call this an enclosed inflorescence because hundreds of tiny thread-like male and female flowers grow within the orb. Logically, because the flowers bloom internally, they cannot rely on bees or the wind to spread their pollen. So they have developed a very special symbiotic relationship with a wasp, a relationship called mutualism – the fig needs the wasp to spread its genetic material and the wasp needs the fig to live and lay its eggs.
Each species of fig – and there are some 1000 of them – has evolved its very own species of pollinating fig wasp. How incredible is that? These wasps are tiny, less than 2mm long in most cases and these poor little creatures lead a short and rather unpleasant life! The female wasp crawls through a tiny natural hole in the bottom of the fig called an ostiole (from the Latin ostium, meaning opening). It’s such a tight squeeze that she gets pretty beaten up, losing her wings, her antennae, and any other projecting bits! Her legs are pollen-coated and her abdomen is full of eggs. Once inside, she spreads both around liberally, simultaneously laying eggs in and fertilising the flowers. Then she dies and is absorbed into the fig by a chemical known as ficin – it all adds to the flavour! The male wasp is born wingless for he has only two functions in life – to impregnate a female and bite holes through the skin of the fig to create a tunnel for the baby female wasps, now pregnant and pollen-dusted, to escape and look for a tree of the same species. In a display of co-operation common enough in the animal world, all the male wasps tunnel to ensure that every female escapes; once outside the fig, the males die.
If you’re beginning to go off figs, don’t! You haven´t inadvertently swallowed thousands of fig wasps, I promise. Read on.
There are four main fig types. Three of these, Caprifigs, Smyrna and San Pedro, are not available to home gardeners because of their complex pollination requirements. The fourth type is one of the few non-tropical deciduous varieties and it is parthenocarpic, meaning that the fruits form without fertilisation. Home gardeners and commercial growers, within Europe and the U.S., grow this type.
Of the 1000 species, the great majority are tropical varieties and 70% of the wildlife within the rainforests depend upon their crop. They are a keystone species, without them there would be no birds, bats, monkeys, insects and many others. The fruits are sweet, high in energy and much sought after. To meet this demand, these trees can fruit several times a year. Over 80 million years the fig trees have evolved a system where each species fruits at a slightly different time – it prevents accidental cross-breeding and ensures that the seeds are eaten and dispersed instead of, perhaps, rotting on the trees when there is a glut. At any time of the year there will be figs, different types at different times.
What a complex, intricate and magical life a fig tree has!
May 2020, the start of a new decade, be magical for you too!
Viveros Florena will re-open on 7th January and we will have a new-look weekly Food and Health Market for you.
From January 8, we will be selling a huge range of organically certified fruit and veg. Every Friday we will email/WhatsApp the availability list for the following week with prices; send us your order by Monday morning and we will have it at the market for you on Wednesday for collection
(or the day after if you can´t manage Wednesday).
If you want to subscribe to this scheme, just send us your name
with email address or WhatsApp number.
Remember, it’s certified organic, it’s fresh and it’s on your doorstep.
Always something new at Viveros Florena!
