Ficus carica (the edible fig) is native to the Middle East where a” Mediterranean type” climate with wet winters and hot dry summers allows F.carica to produce two crops every summer.
F. carica has been grown in UK gardens for many hundreds of years, but the UK is too far north and too cold for fig wasps to establish, so that the only fig varieties that can be grown in the UK are self fertile (parthenocarpic).
These parthenocarpic varieties normally ripen a first (Breba) crop in July/August. A second (Main) crop follows in September/October .
Most years the damp UK summer is not long enough or hot enough for the Main crop to ripen, and the young Main crop figs wither and fall off in the winter months.
This means that Ficus carica in the UK normally only ripens one crop, the Breba crop.
Spring 2026 in the UK was the wettest spring on record and the 2026 summer was the warmest and driest on record.
As the saying goes Every Cloud has a Silver Lining or possibly, Even Climate Change has some benefits.
The 2026 weather in the UK was ideal weather for Ficus carica.
The result was that in 2026, many fig trees in London produced a bumper double crop with a normal Breba crop in July followed by a second ripe Main Crop in September 2026.
The photos below show a Jackdaw raiding Main crop figs from the kitchen garden at Hampton Court Palace in SW London on 01 October 2026.
Thanks to Cosmo Phillipps for photos and information.
