Much has been written about the fig tree, from Bible passages about the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve covering up with fig leaves and countless garden blogs about how to best care for fig trees.
My story involves this little tree on the left, which for the first time in years produced some beautiful fruit last summer. This brown turkey fig tree was saved multiple times from fig tree heaven. It was uprooted at least 4 times, once resembling just a jumble of branches held together by a ball of dirt. It looked so dead that landscapers mistook it for junk and swept it into a pile of debris waiting to be dumped somewhere. I saved it, left it in a pail of water for a couple of weeks, saw some roots emerging and replanted it, only for some other landscapers to repeat what they had done before. I saved it again, repeating the life-saving pail procedure and smacked a sign on it threatening anyone who came near it with bodily harm.
And then came the move.
The poor little fig tree was just recovering when we decided to buy a house. That's fine, except we couldn't move in for 6 months and I needed a landscaper to again dig it up, store it through the winter and finally bring it to our new place. The results are pictured here.
So today, Earth Day, I celebrate the life and the more than several chances Mother Earth gave this little tree and look forward to another harvest of figs.
I am, though, keeping an eye on the landscapers.