I know you’re having visions of fig wrapped in proscuitto when I say this, but I mean it literally…I finally wrapped my fig tree to see if it would fruit for me next summer.

Today, despite the little A and myself having nasty head colds, we really needed some fresh air. So we ventured outdoors for an hour or so because the weather is unseasonably, wonderfully warm here. Since the ground is not already a giant block of ice like in previous winters at this time, I decided to take some action to protect my sad little fig tree, Ficus ‘Peter’s Honey’. The poor thing has been here for 3 seasons now, and I’ve never done anything to wrap or protect it from the cold. Of course when I bought it, the literature stated it was exceptionally cold hardy (being cultivated from hardy Russian varieties). It may very well be, but I purchased it mail order from a nursery in the West, where winters are mild, the humidity is high, and they get a lot of rain instead of snow. I don’t think the poor thing was used to having frozen feet, dry air and lowlowlow temps, despite it’s hardy genes.

Anyhoo…3 years later, every spring the darned thing has been killed back to the ground and had to start from the base, so I have yet to taste a ripe fig from it, though it made a very good attempt this year…3 figs on the plant, none of which ripened by frost time, unfortunately. Since it was nice enough for me to actually drive stakes into the ground, I finally took some action today. My Italian and Greek neighbors who raise fig trees would object to my crude methods, but I’m just not willing to have a giant tar paper or blue tarp wrapped ‘mummy’ of a tree in my yard, so I did my best:

I put 4 stakes around it, and went around them with a sheet of landscape fabric, then I filled the resulting ‘cube’ with dry leaves raked up from around the yard. Hopefully this will be enough to hold those sticks from dying back again. Actually, I was quite surprised to find that there were tiny green buds at the ends of each branch, proving that I may have provided some insulation just just in time. If the plant is able to set leaves and flowers from the previous years’ growth, I’m hoping it can make me some tasty mature figs next summer. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

In other garden news…lots of leaves left to pick up. I think I’m going to break down and buy a small handheld leaf blower, just so I don’t have to rake and get on my hands and knees around every plant to clean the gardens. There’s so much growing now that it’s getting to be more work to clean up. I’m not in a rush, but if this weather holds out, it will be nice to do a little bit at a time all winter and have things just perfect by April? We’ll see.

Oh…and joy of joys, my favorite plant–a red witch hazel (Hamamelis ‘Diana’) is just about ready to start blooming–one little bud had a red petal sticking out of it today. I think there is no greater blessing to a gardener than a plant that flowers in winter. Last winter she bloomed for almost 3 months straight! I’ll post pics when it gets into full swing. It’s delicate but really stunning if you can take the time to look at details and use your nose–it’s delightfully fragrant too.

Off to pay bills and maybe do some spinning if I don’t collapse from exhaustion. I made two sets of batts today and would love to get one spun up. But I’m really tired and this cold is getting me down, so we’ll see what happens. Peace and goodnight.