Interview With A Fig Grower: Mike Piersimoni

Did you know there is a large fig festival in Pennsylvania people travel hundreds of miles to attend? What about a large support group for those seeking advice in organic growing? How to not miss out…

Oct 03, 2025

Hi fig ladies and gents! We’re back with another interview. Today we have with us Mike Piersimoni who throws a fantastic fig fest in Pennsylvania and has an active Facebook group for organic fig growers! Read on to hear more about Mike’s best tips for growing figs…

Location: West Chester, Pennsylvania, zone 7A

My name is Mike Piersimoni, I’m 73, and a father of three. I worked in the printing industry throughout my entire career and was also a professional photographer. I’ve been retired for the last eight years. I’m known as the Fig Sensei on Facebook. My other hobbies are cooking, health, and music.

I’ve been an avid gardener for over 40 years. I basically just got into growing fruit, and figs were the first ones that I thought of because of a great-uncle who had a giant fig tree growing at his home. At the moment, I have 80 varieties. I have 25 trees in the ground and the rest in pots.

My favorite thing for growing is good-quality compost that I make myself. As well as a lot of other homemade amendments like fish emulsion, fermented plant juice, fermented fruit juice, indigenous microorganisms, phosphorus-solubilizing bacteria, and fermented fruit juice — basically these are the backbones of my growing.

Everything absolutely grows better and healthier from using these which to me is very important. There are people who say that figs in a pot don't taste as good as figs in the ground. There is some truth to that because the figs in the ground have access to a lot more things than just NPK, which is what most people just put in pots. If the soil in your pot is as rich with minerals and nutrients, not just nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus, but all the extra micronutrients that the fungi and other bacteria can pull, then your trees will be healthier, able to withstand diseases and pests better, and produce nutritionally superior fruit. Plants and trees have a microbiome just like we do and we need to take care of that, that is if you're a serious fruit and vegetable grower and not just a one-tree pony.

The biggest tip I can offer for growing figs is patience. The other is to immerse yourself in the culture. I find growing can be both challenging and rewarding. The most frustrating thing is that I can’t control the weather, it's the biggest factor that affects things beyond what you feed your trees.

The actual growing experience I enjoy even more than eating the figs themselves. Growing figs hasn’t changed me but has extended me in a way that just keeps me going. There’s always something for me to do and when you reach my age, you need to keep busy living or busy dying. I choose the former.

My favorite fig varieties are the berry figs, although honey figs are excellent too. A few of my top tasting varieties are known figs you can purchase such as, Figo Preto aka Black Madeira, Martinenca Rimada, Maltese Beauty, Black Zadar, and more. I have a number of heirloom varieties that I’ve been collecting along with their histories. These are unusual varieties, not your typical Mt. Etna-type figs.

I haven’t disliked any fig, there’s a place for just about all of them. But some of the typical Mt. Etna types I am a bit tired of as far as fresh figs, but they do make wonderful fig jam. So I still grow those also.

I know I will always keep growing figs but I have expanded into berries, apples, nectarines, cherries, and some ground fruit like cantaloupe and watermelon.

Two years ago, I started my own Facebook group called Fig Tree Organics. It’s a private group with 5,500 members as of the moment. It’s dedicated only to figs and only to people who grow organically or wish to learn how to grow using organics only. I’m always online answering people’s questions. I sell fig trees and ship them and my customers always have personal access to me with any questions.

Two years ago, one of my members who was an assistant director at the Althouse Arboretum in Pottstown, PA offered their location to sponsor my fig fest. People have traveled there from Maine to Tennessee. This season we had 450 people show up and a half a dozen large fig tree vendors and nurseries. Channel 6 news was there and did a small piece for the Arboretum. Here is a link to their video of it.

We had 1/2 a dozen workshops — everything from starting cuttings to general fig knowledge and pruning. We even had Brian Melton from California do a live Zoom broadcast on grafting. The Arboretum is sponsored by Green Allies which is a nonprofit group teaching young people environmental preservation, health, and wellness.

We plan on having the Fig Fest every season. The Arboretum has done very well and they're very pleased with the turnouts. If anyone wishes to know about the next one, all my advertising is in my Fig Tree Organics group on Facebook, linked above, plus I post almost monthly from June until the week of the fest on a number of other sites in the tri-state area. The Arboretum sends out notices to local newspapers and news outlets. We just keep hoping it gets bigger and better so get the word out to anyone who wishes to go there. We are close to the Amish country and there are lots of small towns to visit within half an hour of Pottstown. Lots of antiquing going on. Good food and great countryside.