Growing Figs in Cold Climates: 150 of Your Questions Answered

Included in this book are answers to questions about growing figs that Steven Biggs often gets when teaching or giving presentations about growing figs. Find out about how fig trees grow, choosing a suitable location for your fig plant, watering, pruning, feeding, repotting—and how to conquer winter.

What You’ll Learn

Get tips on growing fig trees and fig-tree care. (And harvest figs!)

• Choose the right location for your fig tree

• Whether to grow in the ground, or in a pot

• How to prune a fig tree

• Watering, feeding

• Repotting a fig tree

• How to protect a fig tree over the winter

Who This Book Is For

This book is for home gardeners living in cold climates, where it’s too cold for a fig tree to survive without a bit of extra TLC.

Why This Book Is Unique

Interested in growing fig trees in Canada? Author Steven Biggs is a horticulturist and expert on growing exotic plants in cold climates. He harvests figs from potted and in-ground fig trees in his Toronto garden. He regularly gives classes on growing fig, and interviews fig enthusiasts far and wide.

From the Book

Ever since I wrote Grow Figs Where You Think You Can’t, I’ve received a constant stream of emails from fellow fig lovers telling me how they grow figs, sharing photos, asking questions, or saying how my book helped them. When I gave a talk about growing figs at Richters Herbs, Conrad Richter asked me if he could record it and put it on his YouTube channel.

“Sure,” I replied, never imagining how many people would reach out to tell me that they had watched that video. (At the time of writing, the video of me talking about figs at Richters Herbs had approximately 109,000 views—not bad for a quirky subject, in my opinion!)

I’ve since heard from aspiring fig growers in other cold-climate fig areas, including Pennsylvania, Alberta, Denmark, Norway, Lithuania, Quebec City, Vermont, and Germany. Even Malaysia! I answered a few in French, and even replied to one in Portuguese using Google Translate!

I’ve made a bunch of fig friends, too. Danne grows figs in Sweden. Bernie grows figs in Edmonton. Maurice grows figs on a condo balcony in Quebec City. Daniel grows figs in South Carolina. They’re my fig tribe.

When I was cleaning out my email one day, I thought, I really should tidy up my fig folder. I had 8 years’ worth of fig questions, and I hadn’t deleted a single one. I started scrolling through them, but in the end couldn’t bear to delete any of them.

Looking back at all of the questions, I remembered my childhood teachers urging me to ask questions, explaining that there were no “dumb questions.” That if I had questions, lots of other kids in the class likely did, too. As I looked at all of the fig-related emails, it occurred to me that the questions, along with my replies, could be a useful tool for fig gardeners.

Book Details

Page count: 116

Paperback

ISBN: 978-0-986-8144-4-0

Published by No Guff Press, 2020

Printed in Canada

BISAC Codes:

• GAR027020   GARDENING / Climatic / Temperate

• GAR005000   GARDENING / Fruit

• GAR010000   GARDENING / House Plants & Indoor

No Guff Press books are made in Canada. That means written in Canada, edited in Canada, designed in Canada, and printed in Canada. By Canadians.