Go Fig-ure

It was my birthday in October and my parents bought me a fig tree. As my birthday is practically in November, I left the tree in a sunny spot while I mustered the enthusiasm for winter digging.

I then read two articles that advised me to do completely different things, so I thought, "hmmm, I'll just leave it there while I work out what to do".

Every time I looked at the unplanted fig tree, I could hear my Dad's voice at the back of my mind saying "Be sure to plant it before the sap rises". As I'm a bit of a novice gardener, I didn't pay too much attention to the sap. I then read a slightly odd novel by Sylvia Townsend Warner called Lolly Willowes which is pretty much all about the consequences of sap rising. But I didn't take heed.

Laziness and ignorance were then compounded by mishearing something else that my Dad said, so I brought the tree into the flat while we were away over Christmas. When I mentioned my happy foresight to my dad, he shook his head and said, "Oh dear, now it will think it's spring and the sap will start to rise."

When I got back from my holidays the tree seemed fine. But this week it's become a riot of nobbles and shoots and hard little green figs, and even I - who know basically nothing - can tell that the sap must be rising, and it's not even the end of January.

Even though it is obviously inappropriately choc-ful of sap, the tree looks so pretty and promising and full of sping that it really is the best antidote to rainy January mornings. But I am also slightly concerned that it might (a) turn into a beanstalk and break through the ceiling, or (b) basically die the minute I put it outside and it gets just a teeny little bit cold. If it does die, then i will have to tell my dad that I was too lazy to plant it. If it doesn't die, but yields a miraculous winter harvest, I will have to confess that I was too lazy to plant it and, what's more, didn't follow my dad's advice. The third - and perhaps worst - option is if I leave it in the flat and it just dies because I have willfully continued to do the wrong thing, despite being nagged both by my real dad but also by the small-voice-at-the-back-of-my-head dad, which makes me an even worse person and a tree killer to boot.

I am hoping (vainly) that someone will happen upon this page, having typed "advice for indoor fig tree growers" into Google, and then tell me what to do.