Pot up a fig for more fruit, says Martin Fish

You’ll need a little patience, but the delicious crop is worth the wait

Freshly-picked ripe figs are wonderful – they bear absolutely no resemblance to shop-bought ones that are harvested before they’re ripe. Figs will grow in the UK, but for the fruit to fully develop and ripen we need long, warm summers, which unfortunately we’re not guaranteed!

In my garden in North Yorkshire, we’ve a fan-trained fig growing outside against a west-facing wall and most years we get some fruits late in the season, but not as many as I’d like. To try and get a regular supply of this delicious fruit, I’ve decided to grow a fig in a pot. This way the plant can be over-wintered in my greenhouse to protect the small embryo fruits. Through early summer it can live outside, but from late summer, when the fruits are developed, I can bring it into the polytunnel, where the extra warmth will help with the ripening process.

Growing in a large pot will restrict the size of the plant, and as long as it’s well watered and fed it should make strong growth and produce plenty of fruits. The variety I’m growing is ‘Brown Turkey’, which is an old favourite with very tasty fruits. It’s also one of the most reliable types to grow in our climate. I’ve bought a fairly small plant to grow and train into a

rounded bush shape. Rather than pot from the 20cm (8in) into a large, final pot, I’ll pot it on in stages over the next few years. This will encourage a strong root system and a better-shaped plant. The pot I’ve used at this stage is about 30cm (12in) in diameter and in a couple of years I’ll move it up into a larger pot. The compost mix I’ve used is 75 per cent John Innes No. 3 and 25 per cent multi-purpose. This will have a good structure, drain well,

but also retain moisture.

My ‘Brown Turkey’ fig, newly-potted into a medium-sized container to grow on

To help it establish, all the fruits are being removed for the first year