The best figs to grow in your garden Come harvest time, there are some fruits you can never have enough of. The luscious fig, that augurs summer's end, is ready to be harvested at this last moment of plenty; it should be eaten to excess, but the only way to really satiate your greed, is to grow your own. Like olives and citrus, figs are borderline plants in this country. Often the season isn't quite long enough for their fruits to ripen, it depends on where you live, the vagaries of each year's weather, and the variety of fig you plant. Figs never ripen properly in the fruit bowl, so there's brinkmanship involved in deciding the optimum moment to pick: that small margin just before the fruit is spoiled, eaten by wasps or past its best. A tiny drop of nectar seeps from the fig's eye when its at tip top maturity and the fruit's skin develops a perfect bloom, best to pop it straight into your mouth, right there in the garden. If your figs smell sour, too late, they're past their prime. Halved or slashed in quarters, squeezed from the base, figs will open like exotic flowers with velvety skins and pink flesh packed with tiny seeds that pop in the mouth. Cut them fresh in a figgy salad dressed with balsamic vinegar, your best olive oil and a spoonful of honey. Second bests could spend a brief sojourn on a sunny window sill, then straight into a medium oven for 20 minutes, drizzled with honey and a little butter mixed with cinnamon then served with a dollop of Greek yoghurt and the last of the borage flowers. Try them soaked in orange water and sliced to top an almond tart; stuff with ricotta and pistachio nuts; or serve with wafer-thin Parma ham, soft crumbled goat's cheese or dolcelatte with toasted pine nuts. Or dip in best chocolate, and sprinkle with sea salt. Where to buy figs Read's Nursery in Suffolk have the best collection - apparently there was a commercial fig orchard in the locality up until the Fifties - including "Angelique," "Grise de Tarascon" a medium-sized light purple greenhouse fig with grey bloom; and "Bourjasotte Grise" a large-fruited variety with red syrupy flesh. Reads have produced their own book, The Concise Book of Figs, available from their website. Keepers Nursery sell fig "White Marseilles" with lime green fruit and "Noir de Caromb" with deep, rich black fruit. The hardiest varieties: "Brown Turkey" with large pear-shaped brown fruit; "Brunswick" with long green-tinged figs; and "Violetta" are available from Marshalls Seeds and Thompson Morgan When to prune figs Prune in spring to keep shape and remove suckers. In summer, pinch out new growth at six leaves. Autumn, remove unripe figs, but leave any embryonic fruitlets.