My love affair with figs began way before I moved to a place where I could actually grow them. I remember dried figs as a staple at Christmas time and fig cookies as a special treat. When I moved to Midland, I taught at an old school and across the street from where I parked, in the middle of a vacant lot was a fig tree (actually a fig bush) that received no water, was growing in full sun and had survived some pretty cold winter temperatures. But judging from the birds and people that visited, it was a big producer. About that time, I became a Permian Basin Master Gardener and one of the first things I tried was to make cuttings from this plant. And those cuttings led to the tree in my yard: a Brown Turkey Fig, a pass along plant from some early Midland resident.
For many years that fig tree graced a corner of our back yard, produced prolifically, and taught me many things like always wear long sleeves and pants when climbing fig trees and how to make structures to protect a 20-foot tree from fig-eating birds and squirrels. Each year I gave away figs, dried figs, roasted figs, canned fig preserves, fig jam, figs in red wine and cooked dinner dishes wrapped in fig leaves. And then came Winter Storm Uri.
I knew that figs originated in the Mediterranean and do not tolerate subfreezing temperatures but mine had weathered cold temperatures before. So, I was so disheartened to see my beautiful tree had died down to the ground. Now, two years later, my tree has become a bush but for the first time I have figs and am once again am covering it to get my fair share of the harvest.
Figs are one of the oldest cultivated fruit trees and are easy to grow. Originating in Asia, they spread across the Mediterranean to Spain, were brought to Californina and then to Texas for the early Spanish missions in our state and later for early settler gardens. Now, they are grown throughout the state where conditions permit. Although there are a wide variety…
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