We live on the edge of the fig-growing region, even if you choose a super hardy variety. So it was no big surprise that both of our trees died back to the ground last year despite being swaddled in leaf-filled tarps.

That said, I got to wondering whether my trees might not be a little more winter hardy if I made 100% sure they hit full dormancy before they were covered. So rather than protecting our figs right around the time of our first frost, I instead waited a solid month until every leaf had drifted to the ground. Then I let Artemesia pluck off all of the baby figs to make sure they wouldn't promote fungal growth where I didn't want it. (Yes, my darling doeling really will eat the figs and not the bark...if I stand there with my hand on her leash and mind her.)

Then, finally, I cut back the trees to a few main trunks, built an enclosure to fill with leaves, and topped the whole thing off with a tarp apiece. It's a long shot, but maybe the top growth will survive this winter and give us the larger, early crop rather than just a few late figs in October.

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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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