Ep. 246 From Ancient Crop to Modern Gardens: The Fascinating Story of Figs | #GoodGrowing

Welcome to the Good Growing Podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb, Illinois, and we have got a great show for you today. We will be talking with doctor Elizabeth Wahle about figs, the edible kind. The so I know we talked about ficus earlier in the year, but now we're talking about a more specific species of figs, and we're gonna dive deep into that one today. But you know I can't do this by myself.

I'm joined as always every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson in Jacksonville. Hey, Ken.

Hello, Chris. Do you get all your reading done for this week, your training session?

Let's see. So we've been working on this for a few weeks. Let me pull up the document. I'm on page 176 of page 511. So

It's farther than I get.

I got a little bit of reading done, but, boy, I think we're just scratching the surface.

Yes. I I just printed off a couple chapters and focused on those. So

You did. That's probably a better strategy than me, which is just like, well, let's look about GMO figs, which is not a thing yet, but they've been working on it. So oh my goodness. Well, Ken, I I I think we're gonna need a rudder, the the Helms person here. We we need someone to steer the ship, so let's bring Elizabeth on right away quick.

So Elizabeth, from the Metro East St. Louis area, thanks so much for joining us today.

Oh, man. It's great to have you guys, have me on for my last, official extension program before I retire. And we're talking about something that I love to grow at home too.

Well, excellent. Yeah. And we're really happy to have you here and kind of sad too. But I don't know if, Elizabeth, we could ever twist your arm into coming back. I mean, Ken and I, we're making so much money off this podcast.

So, of course, we'll we'll share it with you. We're not making money. Oh, yeah. But we are so happy you're here. Before we dive into figs, we have we wanna talk about what has been happening with our spring because before we started recording, I'd I'd kinda remarked, I feel like we went from, like, winter, and we've skipped, like, a month's worth of springtime.

And we're sort of into, like, late spring, early summer now, it feels like. And I went to walk I went just walking around my yard, and and there's just so much that has really just sort of accelerated, has jumped ahead of things. Yeah. I just put out an article about crabgrass preventer. And, of course, we all know the thing we tell when people to put it down is when the forsythia bloom.

Forsythia is not gonna bloom this year. I went and checked. There's no flowers. That was one single flower. Everything else got frosted off.

The magnolias are not gonna bloom this year. I'm looking at my blueberries, and I'm not seeing anything. I see leaves, but I don't see flower buds. So I'm getting a little concerned there, but I there's still some time for that. I don't Elizabeth, you're farther south than than Ken or I.

What what are you experiencing down there?

We're kind of experiencing the same earliness, as well, and it's been kind of a an odd, approach to spring. I would guess that we're about two weeks ahead of schedule, right now on production. And so when you mentioned that, you're not going to have Forsythia or Magnolia, we were actually in in bloom, at the time that we had that, what was it, March freeze event or April. Gosh. I've even lost track of the date of of the freeze event, which is the March.

And so apricots were in full bloom at the time. Apples were probably in bud swell, white white tip stage, and peaches were probably at red calyx down in the Saint Louis Metro East and South. And so, you know, we had that forecast for freeze event statewide, and and for my area particularly, they were gonna be, you know, a range of from, you know, 10% chance to get down to 11, which would have just been it would have just taken out everything. And then there was a 90% chance that it would drop down to at least 19, and that's what happened for us. It stayed to the upper end.

And so we really weren't far enough along when I say that we have a crop overall statewide overall. And so, if I call any growers, they'll they'll report, you know, places that were like low, that they have no peaches, but up on the ridge, they have, you know, a 100% crop. And so we're kinda at that stage right now that we have a crop. Strawberries were completely uncovered, and so all the growers had to cover strawberries and protect them, recover them, or run water on them throughout the entire cold event. And so they look beautiful too, but we are still you know, even though it looked like dead winter when we had this freezing event, we are still about two weeks ahead of time, for everything.

And so that's what's given us this, wow. It seems like we just skipped and and jumped ahead. I think it's our perception of because of the cold that we missed missed, you know, that all this development was going on. But we are about two weeks ahead. So a very early spring for us.

Elizabeth, could you look back at your career and reassure Ken and myself so that we don't need to freak out? Like, is this are are we experiencing we wouldn't call it normal, but this is not, like, crazy wild? Like like like, is there any reassurance that you could give us?

Well, you know, that's some of the the questions that I have for our our Illinois state climatologist Trent Ford. He, you know, works with modeling and predictions in there. And so the first thing I asked him, you know, was what's happened to chilling? You know, because we're always talking about climate change in terms of, you know, that just overall shift of of temperature slightly up over time. And so, you know, for the majority of us in the foreseeable future, you know, within reasonable, you know, we're not jumping a hundred years forward, but chilling hasn't isn't really gonna change for us, which is good.

Now some of the northern tier counties will actually gain chilling. And, you know, chilling works that it accumulates in a particular range from 32 to 45. And so the upper counties were usually so cold that they weren't accumulating chilling hours. Well, now that it's warmer, it shifted them into that accumulation zone. And so they actually have more chilling hours, and you would think, oh, that's great.

We're getting more chilling hours. Well, it's not great. It means that the plants will meet chilling sooner because they're accumulating more. And what will happen is if, like most of us on New Year's this year, we were wearing shorts, you know, any plant that's met chilling, and then all of a sudden, you know, it starts warming up and they start accumulating, you know, heat units, they start waking up. And that's that's a concern.

And so research is looking at how do we keep plants dormant if that does become a problem, on it. So back to your original question, that's what all of us are concerned about are these unusual, you know, ups and downs, and that's really difficult to predict. You know, on are we going to have, you know, these like in Calhoun County, we had two years back to back where they had an unusual drop in in winter temperature, enough that it took out the peach crop. And so December, and one of them happened in January. Well, we again, this year, had another freeze event in January that took out the crop in all the low lying areas.

Not the entire county, but in the low lying areas. And so that's, I think, what we're gonna see the modelers trying to look at more closely is can we predict or or what can we do, you know, to protect our crops, not only for commercial growers, but for home too. I mean, it's kinda disappointing. You know, you're you're trying to grow something and every year, some ab you know, unusual freak freeze event comes along and takes out your crop like we had, this year. So I have no apricots, which is not unexpected, but it's still disappointing for it And to so, you know, it's so rare for us not to have Forsythia.

I mean, that's that's really unusual not to have Forsythia. It's pretty common for us to get our magnolias smacked every year, but usually not Forsythia. So we're starting to you know, people start noticing things whether whether you're aware of, you know, hey, I don't ever recall a Forsythia being taken out by freeze event. Well, it happened this year because you just reported it. And so to me, that's unusual for it to happen.

Now even my daffodils, like, bloom fine, but all the foliage is all kind of wilted and stuff. So it'll be interesting to see how well they do next year if they're able to get enough energy built up for for bloom next year.

Yeah. We were I I agree with you, Ken. It's you know, when I walk around and and look just in my personal, you know, landscape, all the summer blooming bulbs, they're flowering, but they first got smacked with freeze injury on their leaves, and then they got hit with 90 plus degree temperature, and they're not used to that that temperature. So we had such extreme shifts. And and again, that goes back to the question of, are we gonna be able to continue growing what we're growing to our satisfaction, you know, you know, and what they look like.

No one wants to walk along and see daffodils with the foliage all, you know, burnt off and and then the flowers just kinda melt in in heat. So I do think that there's some things that, we're gonna start noticing and and probably, you know, think about what we can do about that. You know? Later flowering type things comes to mind is is what they'll start shifting to.

Speaking of putting plants in dicey situations, let's switch gears and talk about growing figs. Obviously, listeners, viewers, we are coming from the perspective of growing them in Illinois, which will be met with variable success, but we're gonna get into that kind of our Midwestern climate and growing figs. But I guess, you know, why we decided to sort of pull this particular piece away when we did the the show about Ficus in general, the the entire genus, is I think, Ken, you came across an article about this new release. It's called the Fignomial Fig that came across our email. I would you mind updating us on a what is a Fignomial Fig?

Yeah. So this one was so Chicago Hardy or Hardy Chicago. You see it both ways. It's probably one of the it's probably the best most well known cold Hardy figs so it can take get down to zero, ten degrees and still you're gonna get some dieback, but it it can survive, you know, outdoors with some protection fairly well. This was a mutation of that.

So they I guess the person who discovered this, saw a plant that was kind of real or branch that was real stubby and stuff, thought it was a witch's broom. Turned out it wasn't. They propagated it. And they've and released this Phignomial Phignomenal, cultivar. That's it's basically a dwarf of that Chicago hardy.

Think I read somewhere they said after five years, it's in a 10 inch container. It's 36 inches tall and wide. So dwarfing is out short inner nodes. Looks like it may fruit earlier than this kind of the normal Chicago hardy. So kind of that smaller type fits in a pot, better if we're going be bringing these in and out.

Maybe a little easier to deal with than some of these other other ones that we commonly grow for fruit production.

And then, Elizabeth, you said you really enjoy growing figs. So could you tell us a little bit I think maybe just off the

bat, like, so just based on that statement, it sounds like it is possible. So are you growing Chicago hardy in in your garden? I am growing Chicago hardy both in the ground and in containers. And I grow it in the container, just as a precaution or a backup, to having a cold snap, which happens almost every year now, which will pretty much, you know, result in you not having a crop for in ground, figs. So containers are a way to, kinda guarantee that you're gonna get a crop.

So alright. We've established that we can grow figs here. We haven't talked about harvest yet necessarily, but we can grow them here. But figs are not native to Illinois. They're not native necessarily to this part of the world.

So I think to dive into this, we're gonna have to go back in time and we're at maybe maybe we should start at the beginning, which oddly, a lot of the major religious texts in the Bible, the Hebrew, the Christian, even the Quran mentioned fig in kind of, like, the origin story. So but then even before that. So I'd let's let's go to the other side of the world and into our time machine, so back several thousand years. So I I mean, what could let's let's talk about the history of the fig in the beginning.

Yeah. So I I think they found evidence going back eleven thousand plus years that were humans have been cultivating. So there's some some argument that this could be probably the one of the first, if not the first, cultivated foods that humans had. I think it was, it was Turkey Syria area, where this is found. So humans have been cultivating this for for a long period of time.

And like you mentioned, there's it's kind of intertwined with a lot of cultures and and oral traditions and and even written further down the road.

And I think it's believed that they originated from, Northern Asia Minor, which in modern days would be Turkey. And historically, you know, because we think of figs being native to much of the Mediterranean. Historically, they give credit to the Greeks and and Romans through movement of civil civilization for spreading it throughout the entire Mediterranean region. And then at some point, they moved with missionaries to California, and that's where we have the mission fix.

So, yeah, we have seen a lot of of kind of different historical evidence of of figs throughout, like, popular history. I I think maybe one of my favorite ones is in ancient Greece, I was trying to find what exactly they called it. It was cinco something. Cincoium. I'm trying to refine that in the document here.

Figs have had a lot of names over the centuries and depending upon where you're at in the in the world. And probably one of my favorite facts, I'm just gonna go ahead and say it right now, is that in ancient Greece, people who loved figs were sycophats. Sycophats. And then that then moved to people who stole sacred figs and then traded it be with with people outside of Greece were then also called sick sycophats, which we now use in today's terminology in a similar but very different way. But basically back then, it was people who were obsessed with figs.

And so that that's one of my my favorite little things. But and and and it was right up there with olives and grapes. Figs was was right there in ancient Greece. And it it then carried on through into even that ancient Rome. So I think is it Romulus and Remus were were suckled by a wolf underneath the fig tree, and that's where Rome came was born.

So, yeah, it it's all over the place. But if we go back a little bit farther in time, even to ancient Egypt, figs there too. Now maybe a slightly different species. I think this is Ficus sycamores, the sycamore tree. But remember you hear that?

Sicca. It's it's it's in that word too. Just like sycophant or sycophant. I can't say words, but the sycamore tree. I I and there's religious significance behind that.

It now that is a ficus. It's not the same as our edible fig, but it does produce an edible fruit off of that. So, I mean, this this plant has been part of our our culture history for humanity for long, long time since we've been since the beginning that we know of.

Well, it's kinda interesting, Chris, when you mentioned that. I'm my mind is kinda putting, you know, historically on how long we've named things, you know, when we talk about what the fruit actually is being zirconium, you know. The the fact that, you know, some words have stayed with us historically, and some of them have changed meanings, but zirconium has not changed on, you know, how we describe the the fruit. But we have remnants of the history in other ways Yeah. You know, in our society and language.

Oh, yes. I I think what we just did there was we boiled down what what was it? Like, 11,000 years worth of of history to a few minutes. But but there I think there's entire books written on this particular topic. So and and I I feel like I've read one.

So but I I guess let's let's fast forward now to more modern times and and kind of where where are we finding figs grown today? Because I as far as, like, I would say our Midwestern diet, I don't see much, like, figs used as ingredients or even as, like, a main dish even though both historically and in ancient history, these are staple crops for a lot of people. Where where are we seeing these used and grown more in the in the world?

Turkey is the biggest producer. And then what is it? Some North Africa where they make up, like, 60 some percent of the production worldwide. I think Turkey is 25%. So, again, the kind of the Middle East area where, you know, where they're originally from, which would make sense that that's kind of your a majority of your your production there.

I know they got some commercial production in California. Oh, we talk about United States. The United States is trying to remember the list I looked at. They're in the top 10.

I think they're eighth.

But, yeah, towards the bottom. Bringing up the rear in the top 10.

Still out of the list of countries around the world, eighth's not too bad. But, yeah, California, do fresh figs and dried figs, I think. There's some countries where it's really like this or that, but California seems like in southern on Southern Southern California, they do fresh figs. In Northern California, they do the dried figs. But, yeah, there's there's good fig growing country there as long as you're on the coast.

It's probably pretty limited, though.

I was gonna say, you know, when you go to the grocery here, if we just stay in the Midwest, you know, the primary sources where I see figs now occasionally during holidays, we'll see fresh figs. But year round, it it'll be the dried figs, you know, where you go to the dried fruit section. You can usually get dried figs, but I also see it in the cheese section. You can, you know, get some fig paste because it pairs so well with different cheeses and and charcuterie boards, things like that. But you also see it in jams and jellies, as well.

Certain brands, do do, fig. And, of course, we cannot forget the Fig Newton.

Oh, yes. That's I There's your fig in the Midwestern diet right there.

There you go. That's it.

Well, I'll have to admit, the only fig I've probably ever eaten is in a Fig Newton. So I've never actually tasted a fresh fig or even dried fig paste except for in that cookie form. But it's not a cookie, is it? That's what they said in the eighties at least. It's fruit and cake.

That was the commercial. I've I've never eaten a fig. Elizabeth, have you ever eaten a fresh fig before?

Oh, absolutely. I grow my own.

And Okay.

What was running what was running through my mind is, you know, when they're first coming on, none of them ever make it into my kitchen. I I greedily just eat them. I don't even share them. There is it's just something that is is just delicious. I I can't describe it any other way.

They're just you know, when you talk about apples, pears, blueberries, strawberries, just on first bite, there's usually not a decision whether you like it or not. It's just kinda good. Figs fall in that category as well. It is just a delicious sweetness. Really nice.

Ken, have you ever tried a fresh fig before?

Yes. I found them in the grocery store once. I don't remember where. Yeah. It's not not very often.

Maybe once or twice. Okay.

Alright. You get you're all one up on me again. I've I've only had the, I guess, the dried version of it, the dried paste. So I guess let's get into maybe more specifically what's happening or, like, what is the edible fig? I guess we've have we even said the scientific name of it yet?

What is the scientific name?

Ichus caricia.

Alright. So there so we have the scientific name. And so what what is the edible fig? Is it what kind of plant are we talking about? What if we were gonna put this in our yard, what would we expect to grow?

Well, it's a woody perennial that is not reliably hardy, the upper portions. I'm gonna say the upper above ground portions are not reliably hardy in our climate, and certain cultivars more so than others. Ken already mentioned, you know, things like brown turkey and Chicago hardier are the ones that are gonna be more likely. But at its base, it is a woody perennial that can get top killed in our climate.

I I read that the the woody tissue is not that useful, you know, that we can harvest the fruit. We can even use the leaves off of this plant, but the the text said that the wood burns kind of smoky and and dank or, you know, it kinda had the smell odor to it. So it's not a clean burning wood. So they kinda reminded me of maybe, like, elderberry. I don't know if that's a accurate kind of comparison there, but elderberry to me seems to, like, grow up and it's kinda pithy and

That's how I would describe it. You know, there's there's several, you know, shrubs that we prune on and this is not a a dense wood, like you would expect, you know, an oak or something where you're sawing on it. It it you probably used a good word. It's more towards a pithier, nature. It's not there.

But, like, where where you can't successfully grow it outdoors. It's more of a tree.

Yeah. Mhmm.

Whereas whereas here in the Midwest because it's getting killed in the ground, it's more or less a shrub because of that.

Right. Okay.

And so if we've got it in the ground and we've we've got it established and now we wanna harvest something from it, what are we actually picking from this? Because sometimes plants like to trick us in terms of, like, you know, is this a fruit? Is it a flower? Is it a stem? Is it a root?

What is the fig? What is it?

Well, it's actually has a designation of being an aggregate and a multiple fruit at the same time. And so when you look at what the fruit actually is, it's zirconium, which is modified stem tissue. And if you just think about it kind of turning it inside out and retaining the flower structures on the inside. But, you know, it's not it's soft stem tissue, not, you know, hard tissue. That's what allows us to eat the entire thing without having to peel off a woody layer or something like that.

But that's effectively what it is, is modified stem tissue and the fruit flowers and then turning into fruit are on the inside. And so it it's classified as both a multiple and an aggregate fruit.

Okay.

Lots of flowers on the inside.

On the inside. So we have a a a structure of a fleshy kinda like structure, a succulent sort of structure. Yes. And on the inside are the flowers, the male, the female flower parts or what what are we talking about in terms of the the the the male female flowers?

Depends on what type of fig we're talking about. And so, you know, most of the common figs that we grow would just be female flowers. So they're parthenocarpic, they don't need cross pollination to form. Now, are figs that are probably not going to be as common or or as available in the nursery trade that have both male and female flowers. And depending on which crop, I'm kind of leading up to that some can produce one crop, some can produce two crops.

Some of them require cross pollination for certain crops. And so, those would have male and female flowers in it. And usually, the male flower are closer to the opening of the zirconium within the flower. But again, I'm going to go back to, you know, just sticking to the common type are primarily just female flowers on the inside.

And what people are gonna be growing?

Yes.

That's right. In the Midwest, you're gonna be growing common type and unless you're in California.

Right.

Anywhere in The US, you're gonna be growing common type. So you don't really have to worry about pollination, which is really cool. But you don't have to worry

about it.

I found it really cool too, Kent. And it kinda made me wish I didn't live in The United States. I kinda wished I lived where, the very specific wasp that does the pollination was around so that, you know, we could see how that operates, but we're not so lucky.

Well, there was a thing that went around on social media that was like, you have dead wasps in your figs. So do we have wasps in our figs? How let's let's dive into pollination then. How is this? Because people probably wouldn't wanna eat the dead wasps if they had had a

choice. Go for it, Ken.

So I got a a page of notes because this is and there's a lot of like, when I was reading this chapter in the in the book you were talking about, like, I had to read it, like, three times because there's all kinds of terms that are specific to figs I had never heard of, and I kept getting confused. So so for pollination, so our our edible fig, Ficus carissa, is pollinated by one species of wasp, which is Blastophaga senescence. It's the only known pollinator of of the edible fig, and it does not survive, you know, in the Midwest. So even if we get it introduced here, it's gonna die out in the winter. So we wouldn't be able to do this regardless.

I was like I mentioned that the plants are they're gyno deious. We've got our female plants, and then we have a hermaphroditic or bisexual plant that's producing the pollen and stuff. And they are functionally deious, so the male plants produce pollen. That's where the wasps are emerging from, and then they'll go out and spread the pollen and stuff, where the females are only producing, seed and fruit. So the females so in the flowers, so there this all the flowers on the inside, there's a hole, the ostiole, that the wasps are going to climb in through.

Lot times when they're climbing through there, these female wasps, the ring the wings will get shredded and then antenna may get pulled off. So they're going in there, and they're going to lay their eggs in in the female flowers. So when we're talking about the the quote unquote male plant, those are those those are called capraphigs. So these are going produce the pile and the flowers have short styles on them so the females can lay eggs in them. They lay the eggs in the flowers, the female parts, those produce galls that the wasps will develop in.

Those eggs will hatch, it can take a couple of months for those larvae to develop into adults. The males will emerge first. They will then fertilize the females before they emerge, oftentimes their sisters unless you have multiple wasps coming in. And then the males will start tunneling through the fruit and then they'll die. And the female wasps will emerge.

When they emerge, usually by that time the flowers are shedding pollen or producing pollen. When they're climbing out or crawling around, they'll pick up pollen, they'll crawl out through those holes the males produce, then they'll go out, fly off, find other figs to visit to lay their eggs in. And they live for about two days. So this is all going to happen pretty quick here. If they happen to go to one of the female flowers, those flowers have longer styles, so they're not able usually they have longer styles, so they're not able to lay eggs in there.

So they're crawling around trying to find somewhere where they can lay eggs or transferring pollen, but they will eventually die without laying any eggs, so you get seed production and stuff. And then the thing is that the male and the female flowers, quote unquote male flowers, they smell the same, so the wasps can't differentiate which one's which. So that way the plant's kind of ensuring it's going get pollinated because they can't focus in on the ones that they can lay their eggs in. But they're still gonna find enough of those where they that wasp population, is able to to kind of replace itself. So but, again, we don't have blossom.

You can't grow those. And then for, the caprifigs, those will produce three different kind of quote unquote crops, so they'll bloom three different times. So you've got the the mammy, which develops on current seasons growth in the fall, which will then overwinter and then matures in the spring. You've got the profici, which produce develops in the spring on old wood, on latent buds, and then the mammoni on the current season's growth, which will mature in the fall. So that's just the Capra figs.

And then for like so actually like edible figs, we've got the common type that don't require pollination. You've got Smyrna types or the Calamurnia in The US here. They require pollination, so we have to have those capraphigs or those quote unquote male plants in order to get pollination. And then there's the San Pedro types, which will produce a Braeba crop early in the spring, which does not need to be pollinated. It's a smaller crop, but then the the larger, main crop requires pollination.

So people's heads are probably spinning, but that's how it happens.

I will add when Ken mentioned terminology, and there is a lot of terminology very specific to figs because they're pretty unique. Ken mentioned the Braava crop and we'll get into it. But the Braava crop is fruit that is born on last year's growth. Main season crop is born on this year's growth. And so just differentiating that, some figs can produce a Braeba crop and some cannot.

So I guess going back to the original question of are there dead wasps in your figs? So there are fresh eating ones here typically gonna be the common type that don't need to be pollinated. So there's not gonna be any figs there. The dried a lot of times are what?

Did I say something? Wasps. Right?

Yeah. There's actually There won't be Yeah. There won't Go ahead. So they're so they're they don't they're yeah. They're not pollinated, there won't be any wasps in the in the fresh eating ones.

The dried ones, though, a lot of times those are the Smyrna or the San Pedro type, so those are going to be fertilized. So the wasp will go in there and you know, they'll die without being able to clean the eggs. So there is the potential for them to have dead wasp, but the plant will produce really some enzymes. A of times it'll break down those wasps. So you may get the the essence of the wasp in there, but you may there may or may not be actual wasp parts in there.

And if you're worried about that, you're eating insects all the time. You just don't know what the the FDA has tolerances for food for insect parts in all in all of our processed foods. And if you're eating berries, you're probably eating spotted wing drosophila and stuff in there and stuff. So

Well, I think the the big take home on this is the world over in the Mediterranean. We've already said, you know, for over eleven thousand years has been eating figs. And so they you know, civilization has been eating a little wasp for over eleven thousand years. So it's it's obviously good for you.

So outside of of Western European culture, there's a lot of cultures around the world that eat insects. Yeah. But that's a that's their podcast for another day.

And we've done that podcast. Oh, yeah. Well, so just a little behind the scenes, when we did our Ficus episode of month or so ago, Ken showed up to the the prerecording show thing, and I was like so I've just spent, like, I don't know how many hours reading about fig pollination. And he's like, can we talk about this? I'm like, Ken, that's like the whole show.

So he's like, well, let's do our own edible fig show and get Elizabeth on and talk about it. Like, alright. We got yeah. So so there there now you know the rest of the story as Paul Harvey would say. It's Ken.

He's happy. Excellent. Yes.

I think he's more

than happy. Month. Sorry.

I found out his chair right now.

Yes. I've I've made my contribution to the show. So

Oh my goodness. Okay. So but to kind of just recap, you're eating wasps. It's fine. You'll be fine.

We've been doing it for a long time. But what we are eating, so they're inside, they're pollinating those interior flowers. Are there fruit is there fruit developing on the inside then? Do you do you know is there fruit, like little individual seeds that were are developed for those pollinated flowers?

Yeah. And that's what makes it an aggregate and multiple fruit inside. And so, you know, when we usually think about an apple being an ovary wall, you know, with a fig, I think it's actually a cluster of pedicels or something like that, you know. And so it's just highly modified. And so what we view as a singular fruit is actually hundreds of tiny little little fruit on the inside.

Yeah. We could probably find a picture to pop up Yeah. For those watching on YouTube. Yeah. If you if you cut one in half, there's there's all this fleshy stuff on this.

Usually, like pink or or reddish or something like that. On the inside, that would be the, I guess, the flesh of the fruit.

You know, when you think about a strawberry, the red is a receptacle. And all the little, what we call seeds on the outside are actually the fruit. And so again, you know, a highly modified tissue.

Elizabeth, I I was wondering for what you grow in your yard, do you get a Breva crop on on those, or does the winner just not let that happen?

Yeah. For anything that I have in the ground, no. Because to to produce a Braava crop, you need to have some of last year's growth survive. And you need about a foot to, you know, two two feet would actually be better of growth, and it just doesn't happen. Almost every year, I think I'm doing really good, everything looks fine, and then wham, we get, you know, ridiculous cold period and takes it out.

And so then the plant has to start completely over. And one of the problems with our growing conditions is there's a good chance, and that's what usually happens is when you go for main season crop, and that means you're starting over, all new shoots coming up, and that's the main season is born on this year's wood, we don't have enough time for the fruit to ripen, and frost usually nails it. And that's what happens almost every year for me. I think I've only had one or two years where I managed to get, you know, main season crop. I have never had a breva crop off my in ground figs.

Well, let's let's bring this back into Illinois in in terms of so if people are interested in in trying an edible fig in their own yard, where would they want to plant this? You know, what type of preferred conditions do these plants have?

Well, full sun is is preferable. It doesn't have to be, you know, burning, baking sun or the afternoon, so they can take some, you know, like afternoon shade when it's the hottest. But it is a full sun plant, uniform moisture, so it's a it's a pretty tough plant. As I say, it survives our winters. The root system survives our winter.

It will survive through a lot of our drought conditions once established. But I would say again, well drained and full sun are probably a a premium location for it.

But I I was wondering about humidity too, and and that varies kind of based on where you're in Illinois, but it feels like whether you're by the Mississippi River or you're in the middle of the state and surrounded by corn and soybeans, the humidity is high. And in some of the reading, I'd read, like so the edible fig sort of made its way, of course, across the Mediterranean down into North Africa, The Middle East. It had gotten into East Asia a little bit, but it really hit a wall once it started hitting some of those more high humid high humidity, more high rainfall parts of kinda Central and and East Asia. So is is our humidity gonna be any factor here with our trying to grow a fig in Illinois?

Not necessarily. I think it's more more of a a well drained situation that you have to be more careful of because I live in an area that is, you know, record breaking humidity year in and year out, and the and the plant just kinda thrives in our growing conditions. And I have never had to water figs in the ground. You definitely need to water them in a container. But figs in the ground, no.

And I've never run across any disease problems. If you look, you know, know, fig care occasionally, they'll mention, you know, some disease problems, and I haven't run into any. Doesn't mean that you can't, but, they're relatively pest free other than the problem of the top kill with our winter temperature. And so that, again, goes back to container for fruit production. I think it's good to mention that figs are a beautiful plant.

You know, if you want a large specimen plant, it's just a beautiful has beautiful leaves, and they have some figs that are actually in the common fig group that are bought more for their decorative leaves. And so again, you can look at figs for that purpose, not, you know, with without the expectation if you plant it in the ground that you're going to get a crop every year. But if you plant it, you know, for its beauty, and then you happen to get a crop, then that's just a bonus.

Well well, let's talk about this hardiness. And so I wanna know, Elizabeth, what what you might do you have your container fig, which I take it you move inside. Is that correct?

I do.

What about the in ground stuff? Because I I've heard people that used they would dig, like, trenches next to the plant and bury them. Like, what do you do to protect your top growth?

So because I have container ones, I don't go to any, you know, extra effort for my outdoor ones. I, you know, nature take take its course. But, you know, there are other people that will, go out, and they will either grow it in a large container and pull it up, you know, and move it indoors. That's one of your options is it, you know, effectively is a sunken pot that you pull up. There are other people that, will dig a trench beside it and lay it over, you know, and so either, the easiest way is to keep it in a pot and just lay over the entire pot and trench and and bury it, you know, for the winter, and then, lift it back up following year.

There are other people that will, use a spade and and cut one side, you know, of the root attachment off and just lay it over and again bury it. And the whole idea is to protect last year's growth from freezing. So utilizing the earth, you know, warmth, over the winter so that and so when you lift it up, you can get that bread of a crop. And also, you know, you have enough tissue that hasn't died off that, your main season crop is that far along too. So you it kind of ensures that you're gonna get, two crops if you're growing a variety that can grow both.

And I I came across some stuff from it was in New Hampshire. They were looking at and this is more of a commercial production of things of growing stuff in in high tunnel and and covering it with heavy row cover or winter protection fabric. And those did better than if they just did bare plants in the high tunnel. They they also did stuff outside where they had no protection. They had a low tunnel over it with a heavy row cover.

And then I made a cage, and buried the plants and leaves, so about three feet tall, three feet wide. And the leaves for the outside, protecting them with the leaves worked better than a little tunnel with rope covers. So that can be another option too. You're still gonna lose some stuff unless you're gonna build a massive mound of leaves depending on how big your plant is.

Tell a funny story, I, you know, was one of Martha Stewart's books, oh, probably over twenty five years ago, her gardening book. She had a fig plant, I think she lived in Connecticut. And she detailed how she overwintered her figs so that she got figs every year. And so she built, you know, a cage around it and backfilled it with leaves, because you don't want to, you know, get too much. And that was enough insulation, you know, to carry it through where she lived.

So I got this brilliant idea that I would try that too. Total failure. We just get too cold with our ups and down temperatures, and it and it just did not work. And so I would say that leaves, you know, offer a few degrees protection, but when it just drops, you know, ridiculously cold, I mean, there's some years where I'm, you know, we've had record, you know, minus 16 degrees. No figs gonna survive no matter what unless you've got it buried in the ground or brought into a high tunnel or into unheated building or something like that.

You know, one of the nice things about figs is they're really edible figs are semi tropical, And so, I kinda liken them to strawberries. You can leave them outside until they go dormant. Leaves, you know, drop off, and then you can prune them and and bring them in for winter storage, or you can bury them or, you know, whatever it is you're gonna do. But then they have to be brought back out fairly early. So, my figs have been outside for a while and they're, you know, all greened up and and and growing.

And so, at this stage, I hope I don't have a freeze event because everything's looking looking good right now for my container. But you have to remember, these are not tropical plants, they're subtropical. And so, one of our ways of managing them when we're doing containers and not having to have lights on them and do all that stuff over the wintertime is to make sure that we leave them outside long enough to go dormant, but not be killed. So, kinda like strawberries, you let them go dormant before you protect them. And so, have I don't mine have been outside for several weeks when we had some really cold spells and I was nervous.

I I pulled them back in, you know, because I was a little bit worried about them. That new growth getting nipped on there. So they're late to go into winter storage and early to come out. So I'm gonna say, you know, you don't like strawberries. I'm gonna say, you know, probably the upper twenties once they've been exposed to the upper twenties enough to knock the leaves off and put them in dormancy, is when they need to go into storage, however you're gonna store them.

And then about the same time is when they need to come back out, outdoors is those upper twenties, early thirties. Yeah. Unless you're in a greenhouse.

Yes. Then you're then you have a greenhouse and I'm

jealous. Have a greenhouse.

But I think we still need to go dormant and have they still need chilling hours and stuff, though. So not so I think I read, like, couple 100 maybe. Not not a whole lot.

Not a whole

I what I read in this book is there's not consensus about chilling hours. There was they referenced one author that says that no figs do not require chilling hours, and there was another one that says it require one hundred hours. And then there was one that said, no. It's three hundred hours. And then I didn't read the conclusion of that paper, but I don't know what they concluded from the different research that had been done.

But I I guess there's a little bit of debate about chilling requirements for figs and how much they require.

Well, I will I will share that on occasion when I feel like it, I keep mine under lights and actively growing all winter long, and they still produce. Mhmm. And so, where they're stored never gets below 50 degrees. And so that's usually outside of what we consider chilling accumulation. And so at least the type I grow, I would be inclined to say that they have a extremely low chilling requirement because, again, they go outside when it's fairly cold outside, so they would get some accumulation just by me moving them out the worst, but it can't be much.

So across the board, it cannot be that much. Not like some of our peaches and apples that are, you know

Yes.

Twelve, fourteen hundred hours.

The other thing you had mentioned, Elizabeth, is you sort of prune them back before moving them in, and I did see that in in some of the articles, they the sap can cause a reaction with our skin. Do you do you are we supposed to protect ourselves with that?

Oh, man. Have I ever had that? It is very unpleasant experience. And it's a photoreactive type of response. And so you get the sap on you, and and you're not thinking anything of it, and then you're working out in the yard, and you get sun on it, and all of a sudden, you're in kind of this itchy pain.

It it it somewhat makes you wanna scratch it, but if you do, it hurts like crazy. And so I will definitely say you don't wanna get the sap on your skin because it's it's photoreact you know, sun reactive on you. Very unpleasant.

Kinda like that wild parsnip stuff.

I don't know if it's different from person to person. I can just say that I am sensitive to it.

Better be safe than sorry.

Yeah. Safe than better safe than sorry.

Yeah. Wear gloves and long sleeves when pruning your fix. Yes.

Yeah. Throw it on a small inconspicuous area to see if

you're correct.

I I actually have had it just by rubbing on the leaves and stuff, you know, like, when I'm really getting in there and and pruning on it and stuff. I've I've I've learned that long sleeves and gloves are are just good practice around figs and okra. You just Yeah. Just don't want either one of those on you.

And we had already mentioned Chicago hardy, the Fig nominal or Fig nominal fig. Is there any other cultivars that you might wanna keep an eye out on for Illinois?

Well, brown turkey is another one. I think Chicago hardy is probably just from my experience, I'm gonna say this. Chicago hardy is a is a little more cold hardy than brown turkey is. Brown turkey is a really good tasting fig though. Just really good tasting.

And so anything that is, you know, selected from either one of those would would probably be good.

And I was reading somewhere there's a a brown a California brown turkey, which is different than the brown turkey we would wanna grow, which I guess is sometimes called English brown turkey or Olympian. So that maybe make sure you're getting the right brown turkey or you'll be disappointed. So some other I I came across Violet de Bordeaux. It's supposed to be a dwarf one that, you know, down to zone five. And

I had that one, and I managed to kill it because I broke my rule of not keeping the pot watered. And we went through a drought last year. And I was away for something, and it paid the price for me being away from it. But, it was a good grower up until that point.

In other words, I was Tiramo Tiramo. It's supposed to be five b to seven. So but, yeah, I think anywhere you look, if you look cold hearty fig, Chicago hearty. Hearty Chicago is gonna be on there.

Yeah. And we're we're probably you know, because there's been quite a bit of a push for this, Phignomenal. But, you know, mail order is a really good place to be able to, you know, buy figs, but around here, nurseries have them as well. And so check out check out your nurseries, and you should be able to find some figs too if you're just wanna buy it locally rather than go through mail order.

And Elizabeth, you had mentioned you hadn't really seen many pests, so to speak, disease issues or anything like that. Is there anything to to be mindful of? I mean, we're not gonna get the pollination wasp, unfortunately, where we're at. So any other insects to watch for?

I haven't had any any issues. And so if there you know, I haven't even had an incidental show up on it. There's been some other plants, you know, in the yard that I've, you know, had an incidental, something that shows up every fifty years or something, and I've I've encountered it, but so far nothing in the last twenty five years on figs.

Well, I have a new segment. It is called fantastic fig facts. So I have a few few extra things, but I was I I'm happy to share those, but I wonder, do do either of you have any fantastic fig facts that you have uncovered either when growing figs or or reading about figs?

Well, you stole my thunder on the photosynthesis sensitive sack.

Oh, sorry. Oh, like oh, man. Shoot.

So there's

That would have been mine if if you guys hadn't stolen it.

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's not exactly I guess, fig adjacent. There's parasitoid wasps that'll lay their eggs through the outside of the fig into the fig wasps. So a lot of times they will use the the flowers closer to the center because they're ovipositors.

The parasitoid ovipositors won't go in as far. And then there's hyperparasitoids, which parasitize the parasitoids and stuff.

So Insect geek, how do they know they're in there?

I don't know. I didn't get that far.

You're looking up all these fig terms, like, is this?

Gotta make sense of all this stuff.

Well, let me share a few things I just jotted down here. So we're not quite sure where the edible fig came from in terms of its lineage. They don't know was it a hybridization of a couple different species. Ficus palmetta is actually seems pretty closely related, though it doesn't produce a very even if it is edible, it's not very tasty fruit. However, it it could have been a hybridization or it could have just been a random mutation.

No one's quite sure that first human being that walked by that first edible fig that they they came into contact with and was like, I'm gonna try this. But they do believe that it was adopted readily because it was so easy to propagate via cuttings. Basically, you take a cutting, you stick it in the ground, you're gonna get another plant. And that's really what allowed it to be adopted as a staple human crop. So even though The US ranks eighth out of production, and I think was it fifteenth or sixteenth out of production area, we are third in importation of dried figs in the world.

So we're eating them. We we we bring them in. We process them. We eat them. We probably ship them out also then after that.

But because we're so good at importing them, our production since 2000 has dropped about 50% domestically. So but we're importing a lot more than than we used to, but we're also eating a lot of it. Those are my fantastic fig facts. There's many more.

I will add, when you're growing in pots, figs have a a a pretty aggressive maybe not aggressive, but good root system. And so when you're picking out a pot, make sure that you don't have one that has a lip that curls in. Make sure that you have either straight up or or, you know, like a bell top that because it will be almost impossible for you to go in with a spade to, you know, root prune or pull it out completely and repot it. Because at some point, you will repot. And so, I I tell people, you know, if you're growing anything like figs that have that, you know, really happy root system to fill up every little nook and cranny of the pot.

Make sure that you don't get one with a lip that goes in.

Oh, that's a good tip.

Yeah. I will be getting your power washer out and power washing every paw out of the pot.

We're breaking the pot.

Yeah. We're breaking the pot. Been there, done that, learned lesson learned. Yeah.

But they they did comment about the wild fig having a a very impressive fibrous root system. It goes wide and deep.

But Yeah.

Cool. Yeah. That makes sense. Well, that was a lot of great information about the edible fig. Well, the Good Growing podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension edited this week by me, Chris Enroth.

Elizabeth, thank you so much for hanging out with us one last time to talk about something fun, the the edible fig. Thank you.

I had a great time, and I actually learned something myself. Thanks Ken. Didn't know that wasp had such complex little lives in relationship to figs. What a wonder.

And Ken, thank you so much for hanging out with us as always.

Yes. Thank you Elizabeth Hung. That's feather the in my cap for today. I taught Elizabeth something. Alright.

I enjoyed that too.

And, Chris, thank you as always, and let's do this again next week.

Oh, we shall do this again next week. We're gonna be talking trees with Emily Zweihardt, so look forward to that. Listeners, thank you for doing what you do best, and that is listening, or if you watched us on YouTube watching. And as always, keep on growing.

University of Illinois Extension.

We're gonna talk about figs. And I know we've already talked about ficus, the genus, but now we're talking about a specific species sort of of fig, the edible fig. So that's what we're gonna talk with Elizabeth about. I missed that interrupt, didn't I, Ken? Oh, man.

Should I start over? I will start over. I am sorry.