Having a fig tree in your yard is really great because it doesn’t just give you a shadow so you can enjoy your moments in the garden without being exposed to the sun but it also gives a fruit that is really healthy and delicious. They are really easy to maintain as well because there is not a lot of work, they just need their water and occasional pruning for their growing process and for their fruit development.
When the pruning season comes, you don’t need to spend much time doing it, you just need to think which branches you should cut so the tree can grow stronger and have better figs. By the quality of the figs, you will see how your three have developed and if you need to change something you will know. The figs are a great fruit with great health benefits, they have calcium in them so your skeletal system will in great health.
In this article, we will talk about when you should prune your fig tree and we are also going to talk about how you can do it.
How you should cut it?
With so many different circumstances that you might get into, there are indicating for pruning, there is really not easy to select just one. If you have a tree that is young, you will want to prune it as soon as you can because it needs all the water and minerals so it can grow strong. In a situation where little branches are coming out of it, they will take all the nutrients and the stem will be weak. If you are just buying a tree, you should prune it almost all the way, so it can collect all the nutrients to grow above and under the ground.
When cutting branches, you should focus on cutting the no-good ones. If the fruits are bad, or they don’t grow properly, you should make space for the progress of the others. On your fig tree, you should have a few branches that are strong enough so they are full of fruit.
If you are maintaining a tree that is old enough it is important to cut it in the period where it doesn’t grow. You should start off by cutting all the branches that are damaged, dead, or that don’t grow from the proper place. When you see that something is growing from your main wood you should cut it since it takes away from the development of the fruits and might get your tree malnourished. The whole point is to cut them so they don’t interfere with your main wood because the leaves may cover it and they will inhibit the sun exposure to them.
Another way to improve the end product is to cut the main branches a little bit so they can focus all the nutrients in a smaller wood so it can make the fruit bigger and better. Since we have seen how you should do it, now it is time to see when is the best period to do that.
When you should cut it?
There are a few periods when you should put in work. Understanding when is the best time for pruning fig trees is essential. The first one is in the winter because the tree doesn’t grow then. In this period, you should focus on cutting things that are doing badly for the tree. All branches that grow from your fruit ones, should be cut so in the spring it can grow with full potential. You should also cut branches that are damaged because they will only take nutrients away from the fruits without producing them. Also, you can shorten the main woods so they grow more when the sun comes up.
Another period is in the middle of the spring or right just before the summer. Since the tree had enough time to blossom and have new branches and leaves, you can go straight ahead and cut them while they are still young and don’t require many nutrients. This way you can save your tree and your fruit season.
The last pruning of the year is in the middle of the summer. You should straightaway cut the branches that were left away when they were supposed to grow. This way you will have less work at the beginning of the next year because there will be nothing to cut, or if there still is something, it will be less work. At the end of the season, if you see fruits on your tree that are not ready to be eaten you should leave them as they are to stimulate the growth of the next year’s crop.
If you are planning on bringing a tree that has been neglected, you will need to put in work but about in the same pattern as above. In the winter you should cut everything down that is old and not usable because it makes the growth process slower. In the spring you will see new branches that have grown a few months back and these are the new ones that will produce the fruit that you will be eating the next year. In case there are too many and you don’t need them all, cut the majority of them so the others can be free and can grow better products.
Conclusion
Keeping a tight schedule for pruning your figs is really essential because they can overgrow easily. When that happens, you will need to spend a lot of time and work on bringing it back to how it should look like. A neglected tree will grow without fruit and there is no point in that. Not only that you don’t have to eat it, but it is also bad for the plant itself. That is why there are few periods where you have to cut so everything goes well with the growth afterward, and to prepare it for the next year as well.
