The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Chicago hardy fig update

Chicago hearty fig close up with barn in background


Our Chicago Hardy Fig will be 2 years old this November.

Anna predicted it would be 2012 when we would first see some fruit and it looks like there should be a respectable amount depending on how soon our first major frost happens.

Neither of us have tasted fresh figs and we have been looking forward to fig harvest day since we saw the first buds.



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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This year Kiddo and Hubby bought me a Hardy Fig along with several varieties of flowers. It already had fruit set:) (When trees went on clearance I snapped up another at a ridiculously low price, and it too also had fruit set on it !) We just harvested our second fig, the first having been snatched my some un-named critter. But there I was, out in the garden, doing the happy fig dance:) That was the best fig ever :) On a side note, how do(or do you?) you prep your tree for winter?
Comment by MamaHomesteader Wed Aug 15 22:34:48 2012

MamaHomesteader --- Ours is loaded too, but we'll have to wait and see if any ripen before it gets too cold. Since we've got nearly two months before the frost, though, and most are big, I'm very hopeful. :-)

You can see our fig overwintering method here.

Comment by anna Thu Aug 16 06:49:40 2012
We love ours. Our neighbors and any others we can find. we especially love them fresh off the tree (birds love them too). Our other favorite way is to dry them, reconstitute them mix them 60 percent fig, 40 percent pecan and grind in the food processor with honey. Makes a wonderful spread. We live in northeastern NC and don't do anything other than prune them. They grow prolifically around here.
Comment by howard Thu Aug 16 14:13:08 2012

Howard --- I'll bet you're in zone 7. I know folks in Asheville with great-looking hardy figs, but I think we're just a hair colder here than there, which makes the frost-protection mandatory. Where the leaves drifted down from around the tops of our branches, those parts of the tree died back. On the other hand, I've read that even if your whole tree dies back each year, you can get fruit off these hardy figs as long as the winter frost doesn't come too early, which is what we're banking on!

Your spread sounds delectable! We always used to make a decadent mixture at Christmas --- dried apricots, dried figs, dried dates, walnuts, coconut, and pecans, all ground up together and rolled into balls along with a bit of lemon zest and juice. Delectable!

Comment by anna Thu Aug 16 14:39:37 2012





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