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Inedible figs

pmarley4rhpmarley4rh Posts: 2
in The potting shed
Hello All,
our elderly neighbour has a beautiful fig tree which overhangs our garden and is laden with figs. However, every year the figs drop en-masse before ripening. Our neighbour says she can remember her late husband harvesting thousands of figs from this tree years ago but for some reason, the fruits just don't seem to be able to reach maturity any more. It's a fine tree, about fifteen or so feet high and looks to be in rude good health. The pictures show the tree and then what's inside the figs at this early stage. Can anyone please suggest how we might ensure the figs stay on the tree until they ripen? It all seems such a waste and I love figs, so to see this happen year after year is particularly maddening. Thank you, Phil.

Posts

  • bertrand-mabelbertrand-mabel Posts: 2,697
    It certainly does look very healthy, much better than ours which this year has very small leaves and hardly any fruit.
    Sometimes it can be lack of water which prevents the fruit from ripening but the leaves look lush.
    They will not ripen off the tree unfortunately.
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    Thirst.  It's been very hot and almost bone dry since the winter deluge stopped.

    Ours dropped nearly all its fruit a couple of days ago so yesterday OH gave it a good butchering - crown lifting with attitude - and then 4 15 litres buckets of water from one of our butts.   We're hoping that the few surviving figs will ripen or at least that it will do better next year.  
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • MeltemiMeltemi Posts: 6
    The Greeks boil them with lime and make a jam...just Google it
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