The Fig Tree That Built a Community: A Story of Care, Culture, and Connection

🍋 Lemon Camp: September 17 and 24

Grow a healthy, productive lemon tree in a pot. In these two live online sessions, Steven Biggs covers watering, feeding, pruning, repotting, pests, flowers and fruit—and how to get a lemon tree through the winter.

Recordings are included, so you can watch afterwards if you can’t attend live.

Learn more and register for Lemon Camp

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In this episode, I chat with Helena Moncrieff, author of The Fruitful City, to explore a moving story from Toronto—one that begins with a fig tree and grows into something much bigger.

Helena shares the story of Francesco, a gardener whose towering backyard fig tree became the heart of an annual tradition. Each fall, neighbours, friends, and even strangers would gather to help perform the ritual of tipping the tree over to protect it through the winter. Or, later, as it got bigger, to help him wrap it. Lots of heavy work, but a shared act of growing food and cultural heritage.

What started as a cold-climate fig-growing necessity blossomed into a powerful symbol of community.  

If the idea of tipping fig trees for the winter interests you, here’s an article that explains how to do it.