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Good afternoon, growers. It’s Sunday, July 5th, and we’re at that point in summer right now where any figs that will have a prayer of ripening within warm temperatures had to have already set on our trees. So, right now, we are just playing the waiting game, waiting for our precious figs to ripen. And today I wanted to discuss with you three tips that will help speed up the ripening processes of your figs so you will have the best chance in having good quality fruit that ripen while ideal temperatures are still here with us. A conservative estimate for the amount of time a fig takes to ripen from its initial figlet formation is about 90 days. Here you can see a little tiny figlet has formed on this tree. So this figlet is probably anywhere from 80 to 90 days from ripening. Figs come from a climate with very warm summers and ideally they ripen when temperatures are still in the 80° range. So with today being July 5th, if I add 90 days to this figlet, I’m going to wind up right around October 5th. And for most areas of the northern hemisphere, we’re starting to cool down around mid to late September. So any baby fig that forms at this point in the year probably won’t be able to ripen for us and it’ll just be a waste of energy for your tree to have to carry those figs to maturity. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to show you some ways that your trees can dedicate as much energy as possible so you can still get your figs to ripen when temperatures are still warm and you get a great quality fig. It’s the goal of any life form in nature to reproduce. And the way that fruit trees reproduce is to form fruit because that fruit contains the seeds that can then spread along the earth and make more baby seedlings and more new trees. And figs are no different than any other fruit tree. They want to send and mature fruit in order to perpetuate the species. However, trees have a very limited source of energy and that energy gets siphoned into all different directions. And a tree cannot spend all of its energy simply ripening fruit. Trees have a very finite source of energy. They are limited to the amount of energy that they can draw up from the roots and the amount of energy they can absorb from the sun via photosynthesis. But they have to split that limited amount of energy between all different life processes. So they have to grow roots. They have to grow new trunks and new leaves and new stems because they want to get taller and larger. And they also have to set fruits and ripen those fruits. So all of that energy gets siphoned into various directions. And since they have a finite source of energy, you’ll notice that trees that grow more vigorously, that put on more leaves, that want to grow taller and bigger and put on more stems, they are going to have less energy that they can put into their fruits to ripen. So the more they’re trying to grow out and get large and grow vigor and grow green wood, the less energy they’re going to have to put into their fruits and ripen them. So what we need to do is we need to force our trees to focus more of the limited energy into fruing and ripening those fruits than into growing into all different directions. Most of my fig trees are over 6 ft tall and I have no need for any figs to be this tall. I want them to ripen fruit lower and that is where most of the fruit is forming on these trees. So anything that’s happening up here I don’t really need. So, the first tip I’m going to give you is to pinch off the growth tips of all of the leading stems and branches of your fig tree. Trees grow through a hormonal process called apical dominance. And what that means is the hormones that are concentrated in the trunks of the trees, they move from the ground and they move up to the tallest growth points of the tree because they are always trying to get taller. They are always trying to grow up. So having these tips on the trees is forcing the hormones of the trees to go higher and higher and higher because that is where their growth points are. Well, the problem is most of the fruit on my tree that has a chance of ripening this season is quite low to the ground. So as the growth hormones go higher and higher into the tree, they’re actually being forced away from the lower parts of the trees that house the fruit that I want to actually eat. So, what we’re going to do is we are going to go around and on all of our fig trees, we are going to pinch off the top tips of all of the leading branches that we don’t want to grow into a certain form. And what do I mean by that? If I want my if I want my tree growing as one single trunk and I want it to end right here, I want the the main trunk to end right here, but it’s only this tall. Well, I’m not going to pinch that one yet because I want it to grow up to be a certain point in my own mind. However, for these trees, these are way too tall. I have no need for any of these trees to be quite this tall. So, I’m going to go ahead and I’m going to pinch off all of the leading branches of those trees because I don’t want the hormones to keep growing up to infinity. I want the hormones to come up the tree, say, “Hey, this uh this tree has been headed. We’re just going to we’re going to send those hormones right back down to the lower parts of the trees where the branches are. So, I’m going to go ahead and show you how to do that. I’m also going to link above a video that is indepth on pinching because pinching can be advantageous for forcing early fruitruing and also shaping your tree while they grow. And that’s something you can do throughout the season. I won’t bore you with the details on that, but please check out that video if you want to find out more information on fig pinching. But before I start to pinch my trees, I want to show you an example of a tree that I’m not going to pinch first. This tree is only about 2 feet tall. It’s one single stem and it set fruit so incredibly heavily that it just hasn’t put on a lot of growth into the stem. So, this is an example of a tree that I’m not going to pinch at the top because I need it to get a little bit taller and I need that trunk to thicken up some. So, this is a rare example of a tree at this point in the year where I wanted to put energy into the vigor of the tree. That being said, the fruit set on this little tree is actually really heavy and the figs are pretty far along. They were some of the first to set. So, because the tree is so small, the growth hormones are focused all in this one little tiny area. So, there’s no need to pinch a tree of this size. I’m going to focus my energy on pinching the trees that are much larger and sending far too much energy into all of the growth stems than they should be sending energy into ripening the figs. Now, before we get too far into this video, let’s discuss safety. Figs contain a very costic sap that is latex based, and it’s very irritating to the skin. If you get too much of the costic sap on your skin, it will create red patches and burn your skin. And if you’re particularly sensitive to it, it can create all kinds of welts. So, please wear hand protection. I’m wearing uh latex disposable gloves. So, I’m going to wear these throughout the uh the entire video. And normally, when it comes to fig pinching, I just go ahead and I pinch the tips off. But because I’ll be doing so much of this today, I’m actually using a pair of pruners that I already washed and sanitized because it’s just too much to pinch and we want the cuts to be nice and clean. And while you’re at it, put on some eye protection just in case. A simple pair of sunglasses just because of all the cutting and all the sap flying around. The last thing you want any fig sap in is in your eye. We don’t want to turn this into a trip to the emergency room. So, now that we got our safety moment out of the way, uh in front of me is a rende bordeaux fig tree. And this thing has just grown out of control. There’s just growth tips everywhere. And there’s figs as high as right here, which is just about 6 ft tall. So any of the tree growth up this high I have no use for. So I’m just going to go ahead and I’m going to pinch that off. And if you can see that uh what is dripping there is the costic white sap of the fig. So I’m going to toss this in a bucket. And I’m just going to simply go ahead and I’m going to prune off all of the tips of this tree because I have absolutely no need for this tree to grow any more vigorously. It’s it’s already given me tons of growth. It will give me tons of cutings to sell or trade to whoever wants them for the next season. And all this energy is just taking away from the fig ripening. So, I’m just going to go through here with my shears and I’m going to cut off every single growth tip and make really darn sure that I do not get any of the dripping sap on my skin. So, you probably shouldn’t wear a tank top when you do this like I did. If you can wear uh something with more arm protection, please do so. But, it is 94° and deathly humid out today and I’m just taking the risk. So now I’ve gone through and I’ve simply pruned off all of the tips of my fig tree. And that is the number one tip I’m going to give you. Stop the growth points. Because if you stop these growth points, the fig tree is not going to grow out anymore and it’s going to have more energy to place into fig fruit ripening instead of vigor. Now I’m going to go ahead and I’m going to give you the second tip for improving the ripening time of your figs. And the second tip that I’m going to give you is to prune off all of this unnecessary side growth that may be coming out of the nodes in different shoots. So here you can see examples of branches that are growing out between the leaf nodes at 45° angles with this main stem. All of these growth points that are suckering out, they’re all useless wastes of energy at this point in the year. And if you were trying to achieve a certain form out of your fig, if you wanted some kind of chalice form where it it shoots out exactly here for some reason, maybe you’d want to save these side growth uh pieces. But I have no need for this. So, I’m going to pinch off all of these 45° angle suckers that are shooting off because I just don’t need that. I want my fig trees to grow figs, not more side growth. So, simply doing that, uh, those little suckers are diverting all sorts of energy away from my fig trees that would be better spent, uh, growing fruit. So, I’m taking off all of these little uh, these little 45° angle side shoots. And we’re going to go ahead and we’re going to do that from all of our trees as well. And when I say side growth suckers, I also mean any suckers that are growing out of the bottom of the tree as well. This sucker right here is actually growing out of the base of the tree. So, I’m going to have to get my shears down there and prune that off the base because again, it’s trying to divert energy away from my tree and I just don’t want that. And we’ll take that one off as well. These suckers were far enough along that they were starting to ligignify. So, we definitely want to get them out of there because they are siphoning off way too much energy. And the third and final tip that I want to give you is to ensure that your fig trees are growing in as weedfree of an environment as possible. So, here you’ll see right here I have a few I have a few weeds that have sprouted up in my containers. I want to make sure that I pull these nasty weeds out because these weeds are essentially competing with my trees for nutrients. And while you may be thinking to yourself, uh, well, that’s not a big deal. They’re just a they’re just a few little weeds. Every little bit adds up. And having your figs ripen one or two days earlier, every few days really does help. You also run the risk of having your fig trees stuck in a rainstorm and a lot of climates get rainier in the fall across the United States. So, uh, having them ripen in a dry hot period is ideally what you want because those are the conditions that they grow in in the Mediterranean. So, having any weeds or any kind of grasses growing in your pot is going to compete with your fig tree for nutrients. It is going to draw energy away from that tree and that is not what you want. This is especially important in containers because when you’re growing in containers, you already have such a finite supply of nutrients. So, you want to make darn sure that there is as little competition for your trees as possible. And these three tips that I just told you are not just relevant to potted fig trees, they’re also relevant to inground fig trees. So, right here you’ll see one of my inground fig trees. You definitely want to make sure that you’re growing them in as weed-free of an environment as possible. I have a heavy layer of mulch applied around my fig trees to keep some weeds down. I also have a few weeds that are starting to sprout up in the back there. So, I’m going to rip them out and take care of them while they’re still small and easy to manage. Uh, and my fig trees here that are in ground, I’m espaling. And if you’re curious about what that is, uh I will link to a video above which will explain how to train your fig trees uh by espalier form. These fig trees are a little bit different because I want them to grow along uh this metal wire here. So, for example, uh I’m not going to prune the tip off of this tree because I need it to keep growing up to here. So, I’m going to wait until this branch gets long enough that it reaches this upost before I pinch the tip off. However, a branch like this that I am not training, that is not structural, that can be removed right now because this is just what you would consider side growth. There’s no point in me having that branch any longer. It’s already loaded up with figs and I’m not training that at all. All this fig tree branch right here is going to be is a source of additional fruit. And then come the winter, I’m going to cut it right off at the main trunk. And then I will have cutings available to propagate this uh this fig tree and make more copies of the tree as well as hopefully have some cutings for some people that are interested in having this variety. Using those three simple tips that I outlined, you can redirect your fig trees energy into the fruing process as much as possible so you can have more ripe fruit earlier in the season. Everybody, thank you so much for watching today’s video. If you found it helpful, please hit that like button. And if you haven’t already subscribed to the channel, please subscribe for future updates and more videos like these. If you’re curious about anything that I use in my garden, everything that I use is linked in my Amazon storefront in the video description. Thank you so much for watching and I hope to see all of you again on the next

So, did you know that placing weeds in a bucket of water does something quite incredible? So, weeds are full of nutrients, take this nettle for example. Not only is it a nutritious free form of food for us humans that I much rather eat over spinach, it is also full of potassium, magnesium, calcium, and other important minerals to add to a compost bin. But as growers, we can enjoy the nutrients of weeds in other ways as well to benefit our gardens. One of those techniques is something called chop and chop. So if you follow permaculture, it is quite a popular one. This is where you gather say plant leaves or when you’re clearing things out and instead of putting them on a compost bin, you chop them up and then you put the nutrients directly back around the ground where it was growing. There is another type of chop and drop and it’s called chop move and drop. This is where you’re moving material, plant material from outside the garden. There might be a patch of nettles or dock for example, chopping them up and bringing those nutrients, transporting them into the garden to then mulch and benefit your plants. Not only are you adding nutrients and also creating a protective covering over the soil, it’s going to break down into becoming organic matter, which will both help the soil retain moisture during dry weather, but also when you have really wet weather, allow the excess water to drain nice and freely. Traditionally, when we think of nettles or dandelions or thistles, we think of them as weeds, but they’re not always weeds. The definition of a weed is a plant growing in a place where it shouldn’t be growing. In this case, nettles aren’t a weed. They’re here in nature enjoying well enjoying the space and helping to improve the soil. But in a garden bed, they’re not very welcome because I’m trying to grow annual crops. And the same applies to say you got a few tomato plants that have started sprouting up in one of your beds that shouldn’t be there. Technically, they’re a weed because they shouldn’t be growing there. And you can treat those in the same way whether you put them on the compost bin, for example, or chop and drop. But for the sake of simplicity with chop, move, and drop, you’re going to be moving plants that we traditionally would call weeds, for example, this dock into our garden to benefit it. And the other use of weeds is understanding the magic that happens when you add them into a bucket of water. And this is especially important, say if you’re starting to clear your garden and you’re pulling out weeds, uh some more nettles here, but the these have started uh creating seeds. If I put this onto the compost bin, all I’m going to end up doing when I eventually use that compost is spread nettle seeds all over the garden. I don’t want that. So, putting them in water allows you to utilize the nutrients of a weed, but in a way where you’re not spreading the seeds, and you can apply it in a different form. With weeds, when you soak them in water for a few weeks or a few months, you’re extracting all of their nutrients and goodness, you’re not going to be spreading their seeds around, but you’re also creating a form of nutrients to feed your plants a lot more rapidly in terms of nutrient access than spreading over compost because in liquid form, they can go down to their roots really quickly. There’s a couple of approaches for creating a liquid weed feed which is the magic of placing weeds in water. The first is to do single type recipes. Very simply this is my dock weed fertilizer liquid fertilizer. All I’ve done is I’ve put dock and water in here. Bit of leaf mold. I’ll come on to that after but nothing else. And I just let it soak. The reason why you might want to go around just using a single type is if you’re looking for a specific group of nutrients that you might need or your soil might be lacking. Doc’s really high in potassium, for example. So, this is creating a nice potassium liquid feed that I can use for say my tomatoes next year. The other way of going around making a liquid weed feed is to actually mix a load of different weeds together by creating more of a balanced or a multi-purpose feed. So instead of just making something say out of nettles which has yeah a lot of calcium but also a lot of nitrogen and is great for more kind of leafy growth. If you mix in things like dandelions and thistles, creeping thistle has a good amount of iron, and then you’ve got dock and everything else all mixed together, you’re going to really quickly create a nice multi-purpose plant feed. You don’t really need to know the nooks and crannies of the nutrient quantities of all of these different plants. If you just understand that there’s strength and power in diversity, the same thing applies to creating a nutrient-rich liquid feed for your plants. Mix it up, have a load of things together, and it will really benefit. Just before I show you the recipe of creating this weed feed as well as how to apply it, if you feel that your garden is a bit overrun with weeds or you’re feeling like it’s getting to that stage, I wrote a blog post that I put on my blog over at hughesgarden.com last week about how to clear a garden full of weeds completely organically and then how to maintain a weed-free garden. There’s a link down below. So to go about extracting the amazing nutrients from weeds, what you do need is a bucket or any form of similar container, which obviously needs to be leak proof. Then you need to go around and collect your chosen weeds. Whether you’re just going to put in a load of thistles or you’re going to do a nice mix for more of a multi-purpose feed. Fill up the bucket with the weeds. And then you want to actually add the water on top. just enough water where you’re covering all of the plant material and give it a bit of a stir. Now, at this stage, you could also add a handful of leaf mold from under a nice big deciduous tree. This is a jam inspired technique. So, what you’re doing is you’re grabbing the biology from under the tree and uh you’re adding it to the feed. So you’re creating a bit of a biological feed as well, but it’s also going to help break down and extract the nutrients. Then once you’ve created it, you want to put on a lid very loosely if the container comes with a lid. If not, just put over a slab or say a few planks of wood and leave it for at least 2 weeks up to kind of 2 months before you start using it. So after 2 weeks, you can start using your liquid feed. There’s a couple of ways of going about it. I’ve strained this one just out of ease to show you. You can see the the color there, for example. Now, what you can do is you can use a sie so you can keep all of the plant bits away from the actual watering because what you want to do is you want to water it and if you’re using a watering can, you don’t want to block up the rows with bits of plant material. So, if you want to start using your weed feed after 2 weeks, what you want to do is you want to dilute roughly one parts feed to 10 parts water. There’s a nice dilution ratio. We do this because if you put too strong of a of a plant fertilizer or liquid fertilizer down, it can actually burn and damage the roots. You just want to make sure that it’s suspended in a in a load of water so it’s nice and gentle on the plants. And then you water. Now, if you’ve got something that’s a lot older, maybe it’s five or six months old, anything after that, you then reduce the dilution ratio to around 1 to 50 cuz it’s going to be a lot more potent. Apply this to the plants as just a little bit cautiously. See how they respond and adjust as necessary. But it’s literally as easy as that to create your own free liquid plant feed using weeds to benefit your plants really quickly, to benefit your crops, to grow more food. That is the process. If you’ve got enough buckets, what you can do as you’re starting to extract the liquid once it’s being made is just as the year continues, continue to top up the bucket with the same rough mix of weeds or the same certain type of weed or plant material and a bit more water. So, as you’re taking out the liquid, just keep on topping it up with a little bit extra goodness. So, that means you’re never taking away any of the solids. A lot of that’s going to break down into becoming a liquid, but it means you then have that dedicated bucket that is producing that really beneficial plant feed. If you live in a particularly cold climate, you might want to consider bringing your bucket of weed feed undercover because if they’re going to stay frozen solid for 2 or 3 months, there’s not going to be any breakdown. So, nothing’s really going to be happening. And now’s a great time to harvest those nutrients to break down over winter to give you free plant feed to start using spring next year. So, my channel is full of videos on how to save money and make the most of kind of waste materials and resources. But some of you might not know that I have written three books. My latest book, for example, the vegetable growers handbook, is full of my absolute best tips for gardening. It goes into a lot more detail in terms of creating natural amendments and composting for example and how to grow basically whatever you want to grow. So like one reviewer said this book is like gold dust. You can check it out yourself over at hughgarden.com. And there were also signed copies available there as well. Also the nature of food book written by my colleague Sam using produce from this garden. The photo of a a leak grown in a bed just up there is also available now over at hughesgarden.com. We’re about to ship all of the Indiegogo crowdfunding orders, but if you’re in the UK, you should also through the website be able to get them before Christmas. It’s such a stunning book. You’re going to love it. One read that I haven’t mentioned is grass. Not really fun to have in a raised bed, but if you’ve got a lawn or pathways, grass clippings are amazing for your garden. I’ve made a whole video which you can watch here. It’s been really popular and it’s how to use grass to help you grow more food and it includes a grass-specific liquid feed recipe. So check it out and enjoy.

This plant here is called tree spinach. It is one of the fastest growing and tallest crops that you can grow in your garden. And it means it’s one of the most productive ones. And it has a different name as well, which I’ll reveal a little later on. It has a slight slight secret that you don’t know at first. But tree spinach is amazing and so that’s why I’m making this video about it. Now, as I mentioned, tree spinach is edible. And there are two main ways that you can eat it. Either raw or cooked. When you cook it, cook it down like you would for normal spinach. And it has this really nice asparagus flavor to it. So, it’s a very pleasant flavor. Um, eating it raw is also delicious. You can eat the leaves, you can eat the whole tips, add it into salads. It adds a little bit of color because, as you can see, you have these beautiful magenta tips which look stunning. Now, in terms of raw flavor compared to normal spinach, I think it tastes a little bit more mineraly and it is related to spinach. It’s within the same genus family thing, but it isn’t closely related to spinach. It is within the amaranth family. So, the amaranth family for everyone else. And I asked Chat GPT if this is more nutritionally dense than spinach because it it tastes so with that mineral-y flavor and apparently it is. So I’ll put the chart up so you can see it. And yeah, another reason why to grow it because it is nice and nutritious as well. This isn’t technically a spinach, but is it a tree? Well, obviously not, but it does have, as you can see here, this branching like habit. So the tree just kind of explains the gigantic nature of it and the way that if you do let it grow, it will continue to branch out. And it works really well as a tree, as a structure. But if you do have some open area in the garden, you might want to consider staking it because if there’s some heavy wind, sadly, it will knock it over. So if you are after the height of which it can grow to 2 and a half meters tall or eight foot tall then just consider giving it a stake and no it is not a tree but it’s kind of like a temporary tree. Now, at the start of the video, I mentioned that this plant has another name, okay? Giant spinach or tree spinach. But it is also known as the glitter spinach because if you go up closely and you peer into the top and the base of the leaves, especially when it is sunny, it it shines like it’s got lots of micro bits of glitter. So, you’ve kind of got plastic free glitter growing in your garden. and uh and it looks stunning, especially when you’ve got that sunlight and it really just makes it light up. Um yeah, glitter spinach. So, if you got kids, you could be like, “Hey kids, I want to grow some glitter spinach.” And that might be a way of trying to get them into gardening cuz I think all kids should grow their own and they might as well grow their own edible glitter. Now, those of you who are permaculture gardeners or are trying to grow resilient gardens, so you have more perennials, like here I’ve got ochre growing up around these runner beans. I’ve got ders here. Tree spinach is fantastic because unlike regular spinach, we all know what it’s like. We grow normal spinach and it gets a little bit too hot and dry and it panics and bolts and goes to seed. Well, the amazing thing about tree spinach is that it thrives even when it is really dry and hot. It doesn’t kind of bolt from under seed. It just keeps on growing. So, in terms of having a resilient plant over summer months, this is fantastic. And there’s another core benefit of glitter spinach, which is it isn’t fussy really about soil types. It will grow in the poorest quality soil, which is another major benefit because sometimes when you plant normal spinach in quite poor quality soil, it’s kind of like I’m not very happy. I want to be somewhere else. But glitter spinach, it’s just grateful to grow anywhere and it will grow anywhere. I haven’t planted a single glitter spinach this year because all this is a self-seeded glitter spinach. All of the other ones are. Um, and I will show you why it is sometimes a little bit of a problem because it is so prolific. But it means that once you grow it once, you’ll never have to buy the seeds again. And dealing with it is quite simple. It’s easy to pull out or to hoe off. But just I just noticed as I was speaking, I’ve got a weed here. And this weed looks very similar to this crop. And this weed here is known as goosefoot or lamb’s quarters. Now lamb’s quarter is very much very closely related to glitter spinach. Some botonists think that perhaps tree spinach is more of a domestication or cultivar of this gooseoot. But like goosefoot or like tree spinach both give you edible leaves. So whilst this might be a weed, it is an edible weed that you might want to consider leaving in your garden. And as you can see, it also has a bit of height, but lamb’s quarter, it will never out compete the scope and size of tree spinach. Now, one thing to be aware of, if you do grow this plant, you’re not really going to get rid of it. And that can be a great thing because I get loads of food to eat, but it can also be a bad thing because it might mean that you need to do a little bit more weeding. But here I’ve got celery or cilerak actually growing and this if I don’t deal with this tree spinach, it is going to take over. But you can just quite easily go and pull it up. Even with the size of it, it is very easy to go through and weed. And as I mentioned earlier with permaculture, what is actually a great benefit of it is that you you can weed it and then chop and drop and use it as a mulch around the other plants that are growing. If these got like really tall and I was like, “Okay, there may be a little bit of a beast and out competing the plants growing nearby.” The way I would chop and drop it is get something out some shears and start at the top and just work down so it falls down on the ground and then I will edit its placement around the other plants. So again, it’s providing another function and before this is actually the second batch of selfsewn tree spinach because before I planted the carak there was a ground cover of tree spinach. So, it’s actually protecting the ground, adding that fertility. We then cleared it, planted the cilerak, but there’s still more seeds in the seed soil bank. And uh yeah, it can take over, but I mean, it’s pretty. So, I’d rather that take over than other things. Now, if you want to sew some glitter spinach, all you need to do is find a place, throw down some seeds, break it in, and that’s it. But for all of the selfsewn seedlings like this one, it’s really easy to move about. You just dig it up with as much of the roots as possible and find the spot where you want to plant it and then you place it in. And then the next thing to do is to give it a really good water and it is going to be overly dramatic. It’s going to flop over and you’re going to think, “No, it’s not going to make it.” But then within a day or two, it will come back up and it will keep on growing. Because of this plant, during the growing season, I don’t really bother with growing spinach. I will right at the start and I’ll grow spinach to overwinter in the poly tunnel, but really glitter spinach takes over because I do like a bit of efficiency. And this just grows itself and it’s maybe time for you to consider growing it. But again, just be warned, it will spread. For some people, that’s a good thing. For other people, that’s a bad thing. And whilst you’re deciding whether it’s good or bad, watch this video.