So. Yes. I am having a new experience in my garden. As my grandmothers were, I’m also: usually always home. I visit my family, but mostly around Christmas time when my garden is asleep. This year I’m finding out what happens when you aren’t home to stop disasters!
There were bees and hornets all over the fig tree. I don’t mind feeding bees, but I needed to be able to grab or knock out this rotten stuff. I couldn’t have done it without the spray. I would definitely have gotten stung.
This time around: the problem is my fig tree. The figs on this tree are kind of bland. I’ve relegated them to preserving and wine. However, I was out of state when the figs started ripening. I was also too sick this spring to prune it back like I usually do. It’s a mess. Wasps, bees, gnats, rotten mummified fruit up IN the tree, moldy fermented slime on the ground. Apparently, this tree does not self clean its fruit.
I’ve never let it go like this, so I had no idea it could get this bad. I have three fig trees. The other two should have better fruit, but man! I couldn’t do anything because of the hornets and bees all over the over ripe fruit, eating all the fruit and syrup. They even removed all of the resin on the closed eyes, creating a vector to spoil the interior of the fruit.
I didn’t want to spray pesticides out there, but I needed help. So I bought the cheapest hose end sprayer with essential oils to repel bugs. This was specifically marketed for kennels and fleas, but whatever. It’s essential oils and soap. That’s basically all I needed. I really just wanted the sprayer. I can mix up my own soap and oil when this is empty and reuse the bottle.
I sprayed the tree. It was dripping soapy, bubbles and it smelled nice from the oils. It probably killed a bunch of insects up in the tree, but it didn’t take long for the bees and hornets to land on the fruit again. So in that short window: I climbed my step ladder and knocked out anything rotting or previously covered with stinging insects. I harvested what was ripe and said, “That’s enough. I give up.” To the stuff out of reach on high branches (although I took a pole and knocked out some of the worst ones that I could see.)
I got a great harvest of figs for the second time this week. I cleaned the tree up (although the ground is still a mess) AND I did not get stung doing it. If you have have a billion bees and hornets where you are trying to work: I recommend this type of spray. They aren’t all going to leave, but they seemed to stay up at the very top of the tree and leave me alone while I was pulling on branches to get to the fruit that needed to be removed.
Overall, good day in the garden. I’d definitely buy and use this spray again! Very effective. Meet you out under the fig tree for a basket full of figs.
Crazy Green Thumbs
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Crazy Green Thumbs 
Do squirrels and birds take figs, or do the wasps keep them away? About fourteen stock fig trees grow on one of my vacant parcels, although some of those that are identified are likely doubles. I can select only four to grow in the home garden, and three will be black (probably ‘Mission), white and honey (probably ‘Italian Honey’). I do not know what the fourth will be, or if there will be a fourth.
If you keep the fig picked you won’t have problems. Nothing eats them until they are ripe. That usually means daily picking. I put mine in a gallon Ziploc container in the freezer. When I have enough saved up I dry them or make wine. The bad thing about wasps and bees is that they will eat the resin that makes “closed eye” figs closed. The fruit will then rot. If the fig tree gets covered in bees and wasps spray the tree with a hose end sprayer with dish soap. Some bees will die in this process, but the tree will be insect free for about 30 minutes and you can take a mop handle (or something similar) knock out all of the rotten fruit, pick it up and dispose of it. If you do this a couple of days in a row you should be able to get control of the insect pests. Then your problem will be mice, rats and squirrels. Really the only way to keep a tree like a fig is to harvest daily. Mammals are harder to deter than insects. If they never learn to forage in your tree you should be OK with the few figs they manage to find in the canopy. Also. I would do the “crepe murder” type of winter pruning because figs have no top size. I currently can’t get high enough in a tree with a ladder to get everything picked. Those are usually what the birds and rats/squirrels get, but keeping the tree a manageable size to be able to harvest all branches is also necessary to keep the gorging by pests at bay.
Goodness, I have not heard about “crepe murder” pruning in quite a while. I do it anyway, since I want my figs where I can reach them. With the solitary fig tree at the home in town, we did it to promote more of the second set of figs for drying, since the first set of figs were not quite as good. Have you tried canning or pickling figs? If so, how were they? I will probably not pickle figs again, since they were so unappealing afterward, and made the gelatinous goo in their jars.
I have not tried canning although I might make jam. Since I have two figs that are fairly new, I may cut the one that is bearing, but not particularly tasty, to the ground and find something else to put there. I have a loquat I haven’t placed yet and that sounds like a good swap to me. Not having any bearing figs for a year would sort of be a reset and I may be able to trap and remove or kill what I’ve been feeding the last year or so. Traveling during the growing season has screwed up a bunch of stuff. But the biggest time suck I’ve had is my older boy doing graduation/college prep/scouts/drivers ed/college applications and scholarships…today he had his wisdom teeth out. It’s been pretty crazy with everything that came with him turning 18. Hoping next year is much less chaotic!
Fig jam can be quite good. I have not made any, but what I got from my neighbors was quite good. Perhaps lemon juice prevents it from getting gelatinous. I would not recommend canning them alone. It is technically possible, but the goo is off putting. Even the pickles were weird. (I ate them all because I was too embarrassed to share them.)
Bee whizz… you be fig jammin’
Hehe, we be jammin’, we be jammin’! Club nouveau-lean on me? At the end of the song. You and I must be the same age!