gf tip
SOW AND GROW
SOW AND GROW
SOW AND GROW
gf tip
photographs KIM LIGHTBODY
If you’re foraging for fresh fig leaves, rinse in cold water to remove any dirt before using.
plan ahead
plan ahead
plan ahead
Ricotta salata (salty ricotta) gets its firm texture and deep flavour from the salt. Find it from specialist shops or online.
THE BENEFITS OF GROWING YOUR OWN
• Grow figs in a warm, sheltered spot in full sun. Plant in pots, or use rubble or submerged paving slabs to restrict root growth when in the ground. Keep pot plants well-watered and feed weekly with tomato food once fruits start to appear. An annual mulch of rotted compost or manure will keep soil fertile and suppress weeds. Harvest the fruits through autumn once they’re hanging down and soft to the touch.
• Bare-rooted fruit trees should be planted on a mild day, any time from November to March. Container-grown trees can go in at any time. Although they’re hardy in the UK (apart from the far north), the blossom and young fruits are vulnerable to frost. Grow your trees against a south- or west-facing wall.
• Sow aubergine seed indoors as early as January if you have a heated propagator, or from March if you don’t. Prick out seedlings and transplant them into individual 7.5cm pots, when the first true leaves appear. Eventually, plant into the ground or individually in 30cm pots of peat-free, multi-purpose compost.
Discover the satisfaction of nurturing produce from seed to plant, then turning your homegrown harvest into something delicious. As well as lowering your shopping bills, garden-fresh fruit and veg is more nutrient-rich than shop-bought, and only picking what you need reduces waste. Plus, being outdoors or losing yourself in a kitchen project can improve your sense of well-being.
• Figs can produce several stages of crop, but usually, only one crop will ripen in the UK, in September or October. The tiny, pea-sized embryo fruitlets formed in the autumn are next year’s harvest – they will overwinter to produce a crop of figs the following year. Unripened figs produced in spring and early summer will continue to grow, but won’t ripen in the UK climate. Remove these in late autumn.
• To plant a tree in a pot, fill the bottom with pea gravel (to improve drainage and stability), then fill with a soil-based compost. Leave a gap between the compost and the top of the pot for easy watering. Never let compost dry out.
• Pinch out the growing tips of the main stems of your aubergine plants when 30cm high to encourage side shoots to develop. Once plants have started to flower, feed weekly with a highpotash fertiliser or tomato feed, and mist with water to encourage the fruits to set.