The Fig Tree in 2024

 Looking at posts labelled 'Figs' and I've written something about them nearly every year because

a. I keep planting fig trees where ever we've lived and then moving ......and

b. they are such an exotic treat to eat fresh

 It's impossible to count how many figs there are on my fig tree this year, but considering it came here three years ago as a 'stick ' in a pot - second pot from the left in this photo from May 2021 -  it's doing very well.

 Three years ago I lifted a half slab from the patio, cut away the weed suppressant stuff, dug the soil under it and added some compost.

 

Here it is in July 2024.................  over 6 feet tall and wide and threatening to take over! Perhaps a bit too much leafy growth..... . I'd better look up pruning information.

And this what I wrote about figs in a post 4 years ago

 Figs originate from Mediterranean countries where they grew wild and were eaten fresh and dried as  part of a staple diet. It's thought the  Romans brought the first fruit here but the trees came quite a while later, perhaps in the early 16th century. They were first grown here as an architectural plant, growing up to 26 feet tall. The fruit rarely ripened and even now after breeding new varieties we only get one crop a year whereas in sunnier and warmer countries they have two crops in a year.

Had the first fig on the last day of July

then 3 days later there were suddenly a whole bowl full 

And they kept ripening, giving me one or two to eat every day since then - so delicious.

PS - Hooray for the return of Quizzy Mondays. Although that and mention of which celebs will be on Strictly does mean Autumn is approaching......but how does someone blind do Strictly.....the thought of it frightens me.

Back Soon

Sue

My Sunday Fruit 'Ration' *

Many thanks for comments over the last couple of days - apologies for not replying - I had to do a bit of Nanna duty.

 On Sunday I checked for more figs and yes, two more were ready and then a small splash of orange caught my eye high up above the fence between me and next door neighbour so I went for a closer look and yes,

 it was a passion fruit on the climber. I mentioned this passion flower plant a week or so ago when the first lovely flower appeared and now there's a fruit - just one - I'm not tempted to get a step ladder out to reach it even if it is edible.

But a much  more edible find was a few raspberries right on the tips of the canes that were here when I moved in. I still can't work out exactly what variety they are as some fruited back in early summer and the canes are all squashed together in a muddle in the narrow border.

* I also had an apple as part of my three-a-day portions of fruit, which seemed a bit boring after figs and late raspberries!

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Saturday Again

I was out the front one day this week when a man wearing hi-viz orange appeared in a truck and started putting barriers around the water stop tap in the path. He told me they had 3,000 to do as all water use  measuring and billing was "going smart" and they were preparing every house to have a meter that could be read remotely. I then found an email telling me the same thing - so I needn't have bothered to have a meter put in last year (although it didn't cost me anything) and blow-me-down I've recently had letters to say BT are going all digital in this area  too - no more home phone plugged into the wall - it will have to be plugged into the broadband home-hub. So no electric = no phone. Whatever are older people without broadband or a mobile phone going to do? 

*********************

 Eldest Daughter and the Surrey boys should have been here for a few days but they had to cancel due to illness which is a shame but hopefully they'll be able to reorganise. They have such a hectic life with Son in Law often working away overseas, and Daughter working nearly full time as well as running Children's Craft Parties - I know I wouldn't have been able to cope with all that even though I was much younger when my lot were born. H. is now 43 with a 7 year old and a 2 year old and when I was 43 she was 18, son 17 and even youngest daughter was 11, "having them when young" now seems like it was a good idea! (Houses/mortgages were cheaper then too so we could manage on one wage.)

It was odd having 3 days that would have been busy, suddenly empty. I gave the car a much needed wash and  got some extra gardening done. I cut back this years fruiting canes on my row of raspberries and wove the new canes between the wires to keep them upright. With more cutting back of the wilderness down the side of the bungalow my garden waste bin is full yet again.

Mmmmmm Figs # 3 and 4! Eaten on Thursday. 

Fig number 5 was eaten on Friday and fig 6 I discovered hidden at the back low down and over ripe and when I picked it it shot out of my hand landing on the patio with a squelch.- Annoying . Fig 7 looks ready for today.

Looking for ideas for things to do on my now empty weekend I discovered one of the churches that I'd found locked when visiting have a coffee morning so that would be an opportunity to get in and take some photos and the weather looks OK for the normal boot sale visits.

You (can't remember who) were right. It's now 8 months - almost -  since Christmas - when I had the lovely navy blue towels for my new en-suite shower room. They are STILL leaving a layer of blue dust on top of the cistern, on the shower base, on the window sill and in the washbasin. They've been washed plenty of times and tumble dried more than I normally would just to see if I can stop them shedding, but under the towel rail where they hang I can mop up a thick layer of blue fluff/dust every. single. day.

 I give up, I've ordered two large WHITE bath towels.

Back on Monday

Sue

Figs and Peppers

 The first two figs were ready last week, the others are still green.

It's a treat to have them so soon after bringing the 18'' tall fig  here in a pot  when I moved in in May 2021. It's now more than 6 feet tall with lots of side branches and about a dozen more figs - hopefully they will grow and ripen.

I've got a problem with the Peppers in the greenhouse - something - and I'm not sure what, is making holes in them and turning them rotten from the point upwards. Yet there doesn't seem to be anything inside when I look. I cut most of the the remaining green peppers and froze before anymore are damaged. There's just one plant that still seems OK. When I first noticed some of the leaves being eaten  thought it was birds getting in and biting bits, should have investigated more thoroughly. 

Last year a lovely mix of red, orange and green peppers went into the freezer and lasted me through to May so it's a disappointment.

Then there was a bit of luck at Sunday's boot sale as there was a market stall there that that hasn't been there often and he had some bowls of fruit/veg for £1 each including  odd shaped red peppers. They are now sliced  and frozen to add to all my green ones.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

F is for Figs

Desperately searching for something relevant for the letter F and in the labels was........ Figs and the last time that Figs got a mention was at Christmas 2020 when a Fig tree in a pot was delivered at Clay Cottage ready  for me to plant it here when I eventually got here.

I must have forgotten to label the post when I  planted it, which would have been early June last year but thanks to the search function I found this picture of what it looked like when it was brought here. It's that small "stick with a leaf" second pot from the left.

The plants I brought with me in May last year.

I lifted a half slab on the patio and cut away the weed suppressant material from underneath to make a small space to plant it last summer. Books always say that figs like having their roots restricted and I know the fig tree we had at the smallholding which had loads of room to spread didn't produce as many figs as I would have expected from a huge tree.

This is how it looks now, it's 5 feet tall after a year and 5 months! which is pretty good going considering the original growing tip caught the frost last winter and then this summers dry weather - but it is one of the things I watered regularly.

There are some figs starting to grow, but they may fall off over winter. In hot countries they have two crops a year.

HERE is a post about Figs written in August 2020

It's odd to think that I'd never even eaten a fresh fig until the tree produced some at the smallholding.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

.

The Penultimate Day of The Month and The 5th Day After Christmas

 On the 5th Day after Christmas...........

My Christmas Treat will be

Some posh Choca Mochas

A new craft to try

Chocolate liqueurs 

A Paperback book

And a big tub of chocolates just for me

These Double Choc Mochas are a treat now because I only usually buy the cheap Asda own label ones. It's certainly a case of you get what you pay for with packets of frothy coffee sachets. I'm trying to cut down and get back to normal coffees and even tea which I've not chosen for a while. The expense was getting out of hand.

Yesterday I tootled off to the main Post Office to get my ID stuff certified and stamped. I didn't need any food shopping, still plenty here to eat, just half a dozen eggs from the roadside stall on the way home. 

Just after I got home a fig tree in a pot was delivered to take with me to my new home. I brought one here in a pot and we planted in against the brick wall of the patio and this year, just 3 summers later, there were lots of lovely fresh figs to enjoy. So hopefully the same again. It's a good thing it wasn't a bare rooted plant as the email saying it was on the way arrived the day before Christmas Eve, so it's been sat around somewhere for a week before I let it out into the light but it looks fine, still damp in the pot and well protected in proper packaging.

I usually do a round up of the months finances and frugal savings on the last day of the month but in December the post on the 31st is always photos of the year and anyway December has been expensive with trees cut down, car insurance, deposit to solicitor for the house selling bit  and Christmas so there's no point looking for frugal bits!

 There was some Clearing out done

Lots of things to to the tip

4 Bags of books and odd bits of craft stuff to charity shop

Son's canoe out of workshop to his garage.

Box of books to Ziffit =£21

Old paperwork to light the fire

More old paperwork into recycling 

Lots of old bits from the greenhouse into the rubbish bags

 

But I failed to get the two crates of tools etc to the auction house before we were locked down on the 26th so just have to hope they re-open before I move.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Counting Figs

First of my figs for 2020, so, so delicious and since these three I've had 12 more - what a treat. 

The fig tree is only a few years old, brought here in a pot after I bought it from Wilkinsons for £3.50 in January 2017, just before we moved here.
Col took up a paving slab from the patio to make a sheltered spot for it and I watered it all through the dry summers we've had since.

We had a fig tree at the smallholding, started in a pot and them planted out at the back of a chicken shed so the water would run off over it. It took many years to fruit as it wasn't really in a sunny enough place.
I remember my Dad saying "are you going to eat them?" and me saying "yes of course, I love them fresh". He said the only other person he knew who'd liked them was his Mother -  the Gran I never knew because she died when I was only a few months old - I wish I'd known her as she loved gardening and farm life.

What about finding out more about this ancient fruit to fill a blog post?

 Figs originate from Mediterranean countries where they grew wild and were eaten fresh and dried as  part of a staple diet. It's thought the  Romans brought the first fruit here but the trees came quite a while later, perhaps in the early 16th century. They were first grown here as an architectural plant, growing up to 26 feet tall. The fruit rarely ripened and even now after breeding new varieties we only get one crop a year whereas in sunnier and warmer countries they have two crops in a year.
Ben Johnson (1572- 1637) wrote

The early cherry with the later plum, fig, grape and quince each in his time doth come.

 and of course figs get lots of mentions in the bible. The Victorians used tin fig leaves to cover nude male statues in museums and country houses.

As children we were given Syrup of Figs quite often even if we didn't know if we'd "been" or not! I didn't mind it................ but dried figs are quite nasty in my opinion - gritty - one of those things bought every Christmas that nobody ate.

 Back Tomorrow

Sue

How Much Food Can One 'Old' Woman Grow.............

and still leave time for reading?


Growing food has been something I've done ever since 1978..............mainly because of wanting to be as self reliant as possible.
I've never been on any gardening courses - always trial and error at the start and what I called 'seed packet gardening' - i.e buy a packet of seeds and do what it says on the back!
This country only produces around 60% of it's food and if they can't find enough pickers and packers or if some smaller farmers go out of business due to rising costs and the new agricultural policy after brexit, then food prices will rise and there will be a shortage on the shelves and not just in this country. Some estimates say that up to 50% of the worlds population will be unemployed and hungry........Doom and gloom? Scaremongering? - I don't know. Although history tells us there have been food shortages after plagues in the past.

Whatever happens it can't do any harm to grow more for ourselves. I'm now doing as much as I can being here alone and leaving time to do other things.

My food production area here is 4 beds that are 6 foot by 12 foot, the top fruit bed which is 10 foot by 12 foot.Plus the two 6 x6 beds for raspberries and strawberries and lots of pots, a greenhouse and the fruit trees - I'm Very lucky (although we wouldn't have moved here without somewhere to grow food).

This year I'm growing aubergines, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers in the greenhouse. I've got onions, beetroot (sparse), early potatoes, climbing French beans, runner beans, a row of mange-tout peas, courgettes,a few leeks and 4 each of broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels sprouts plants outside. The asparagus has to be left now for this year but I've had a few once a week for the last 5 weeks. In pots outside I've got 5 squash plants, 2 pumpkin plants, some lettuces and 3 tubs of strawberry plants. Plus 2 tomato plants in baskets on the garage wall.

 I'm sowing runner beans late so they will carry on until late autumn.

There are strawberries, raspberries, 1 blackcurrant and a few gooseberry bushes, a couple of small blueberry bushes in pots and my small fig tree.

 Two apple, two pear and a plum tree and 2 damson trees in the hedgerow. I also have two young apricot trees - no fruit yet.
I've also got herbs here and there.

You know how I like a list so  thought it would be interesting to keep a running total of food produced here (this may be short lived if I forget to keep a count - which is very probable)

So far   

•  6 small lettuces (very small - as in about 8 leaves each!)
• 2 cucumbers
• a few asparagus spears
• lots of rhubarb

                                

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Figs

These were an unexpected treat.

The fig tree is only a few years old, brought here in a pot after I bought it from Wilkinsons for £3.50 in January 2017, just before we moved here.
Col took up a paving slab from the patio to make a sheltered spot for it and I watered it all through last year's and this year's dry summers.

I wasn't expecting any of the small figs to actually get big enough to eat before frosts stopped them, but I've been watching them slowly get bigger until at last they started to turn brown and were quickly picked and eaten.

There were 7 more after these two ............delicious.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

A Garden Tour

This was last Sunday - the day when there were a few hours of sun in between all the awful weather of Saturday and Monday.

 If this works it should be a tour of the garden round the house. I eventually (always have to re-remember how to do it!)  managed to load it to youtube and it was OK there so should be OK here.
Watching it back I noticed that I called the beetroot "red beet" that what we called it when I was small to differentiate from beet - which was the sugar-beet grown in the fields all around our house.

Sorry it's a bit wobbly, I need to learn how to hold the camera steady while walking.

Please ignore all the long grass and weeds around the edges. Col's brother should be coming over when he has some spare time to do some strimming for me. I can manage most of the work myself but not using a big strimmer. The raspberry cage that Colin built when he was still well enough is also a bit  of a white elephant. I do have all the netting to cover it but that's another thing impossible for one 5 foot 5 tall woman to do on her own! I can't take  the cage down either as it's so well bolted to a wooden frame.

Thank you for all the comments about the Olive Herb. Researching things for blog posts is one of the things I love doing.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

How Does Our Garden Grow........... Part 1.... Vegetables

The first lettuce from under a plastic cloche (Mrs F left 2 tunnel cloches here which have been very useful) was cut a few days ago, so that's lettuces, radishes and chives to eat - not quite self-sufficiency but better than nothing. In a year or two there should also be asparagus (we planted 10 crowns and see signs that 8 are alive) and rhubarb at this time of year.

The runner beans have begun to climb the canes and I've also planted out my climbing French beans and put a little fence made of sacking around them to keep the wind off until they get going as I did with the runners.  Three courgette plants are under a mesh frame to keep next door's cat from laying on them...........she prefers our garden to theirs for some reason. Polly rarely lays about outside, preferring a bed or a chair indoors! There are several rows of beetroot under fleece for the same reason.............and to stop birds pulling them up. The first lot sown were sparse so gaps have been filled with new seeds which are now all germinating.
Our 20 potatoes plants are all looking healthy. They were all under fleece protecting them from the late frosts the other week but I've pulled the fleece back to slow the second-earlies down a bit.
Then under the other little polythene tunnel cloche are the chard and mange-tout peas with room for more later in the season. I started the peas in pots in the greenhouse in the hope they will survive all pests. I've got a heap of sticks there ready for them to clamber over when I take the cloche off.
16  Brussel sprout plants arrived in the post yesterday (Yes I've Cheated) 8 for us and 8 for Col's brother as that number is the cheapest way to buy and we don't need them all. So a while after the top photo was taken I was outside planting them and had to take another photo.

Mrs F left several wooden frames covered with wire netting and also lots of clay pots, and that's how I've covered things...........using the pots to support the frames. The sprout plants also have fleece over the frame to shade them until they get established. (The house in the picture is next door and is up for sale...........for £100,000 more than they paid for it 18 months ago! I know they had a new kitchen and bathroom, but good grief, things haven't gone up that much). There is space for another tripod of Climbing French beans, runner beans  and for 8 Purple Sprout Broccoli plants which will arrive in July. They will be our only brassica plants, being the things that produce the most from least space. Sadly no room for cauliflowers, calabrese or cabbage.
 

On the edge of the driveway, so they can trail without getting in the way, are three squash plants which I put in 3 tyres filled with soil and compost. Each tyre is sitting on some material stuff we found in the workshop, it lets water through but not the soil. I hope when the squash have finished I'll be able to clear away the tyres and drag the soil on the cloth stuff across to the veg beds - that's my plan anyway. To keep the plants from being blown about I pushed a tile upright on the side of the prevailing wind.

Into the greenhouse and there I have some Basil, 5 plum tomato and 4 cherry tomato plants and 4 cucumber plants, although I shall only keep 3 as there isn't room for more.........and I've run out of big pots anyway... ......the greenhouse has a solid floor so no borders to plant in.

 On the staging on the left I've got 4 aubergines and several pepper plants - hopefully more sweet peppers  than chili peppers but I'm not sure as some didn't get labelled properly (oops). Two sowings of leeks eventually produced a few seedlings and I've potted 2 dozen into bigger pots with more to do later and I've also just sown more runner beans.  There are a couple of spare courgette and squash plants.......just in case.......... and last but not least the fig tree which is looking well and my £1.99 grapevine - which I picked up from QD in Stowmarket a few weeks ago.

It's been an interesting challenge to work out what not to bother with in the limited space and we may regret something and change plans next year or we might find we have more room for things this year and pop in a few extras later. Actually it might be interesting to do a post on what we're not growing and why .............well, interesting for me!

I've just found my penfriend from Michigan has a blog HERE

Back Soon
Sue

PS Thanks for nice comments yesterday