Self set fig tree?

[BewareTheBeardedDragon]

I've just noticed this which has grown up from nowhere over the summer in a neglected border and is now a good 60cm tall. It looks like a fig but I can't think how it could have got there, it's growing in the shady side of the garden, and I'm wondering if it's worth nurturing or not.
Any advice?

I do have one in a pot, which is much slower growing (understatement) and has much deeper indented lobes on its leaves so I don't think that could be the source, if the volunteer is a fig at all

I am very happy to be told I’m wrong but I really don’t think that’s a fig.

Though I guess it depends on what sort of fig you mean

Why do you say that, user? The leaves are correct for a fig tree, and the green slightly bent stem. I can’t think of anything else it could be.

Leaf shape depends on age, the new leaf at the top seems to be 5-lobed.

What variety is your original fig, dragon? I don’t know whether the usual Brown Turkey sets viable seeds - I know it doesn’t need the fig wasp to develop fruit, but whether that means it self pollinates, or whether it simply develops sterile fruit I don’t know.

You might want to confine its roots. Ours seems to have broken through the box of paving slabs we constructed, and I have to prune it severely to keep it at 10ft high. It does give about 200 figs each year, so I can forgive it a lot.

If it’s come from elsewhere,eg a supermarket fig, then it may be a variety which needs the wasp, which is unfortunate as we don’t have them.

I just didn’t recognise it, that’s all!

Mine is a brown turkey @MereDintofPandiculation

Good point about roots. I think I'll dig it up and pot it, then see how it goes. If it doesn't bear fruit after a few years I'll decide if I like it ornamentally or not.

Don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth!
Can't really see how a wasp needing fig could have ended up in my garden unless dropped by a bird. I don't tend to buy the supermarket ones.

What a mystery!

unless dropped by a bird That's the route I was thinking. Having your own figs does rather deter you from supermarket ones, doesn't it?

You might like to browse through:
www.ourfigs.com/forum/figs-home/128356-common-figs-ive-seen-self-pollinating-hermaphroditic-and-they-fruit-without-pollen
It throws some light on the matter. I think the conclusion I draw from that is it's unlikely though not impossible that it came from a seed off your fig. Ditto commercial figs. Like bananas, you don't actually want your figs to have seeds in them.

Any chance that a cutting took root? They do root very readily.

2-6 years to fruiting from seed. Much quicker from a cutting. I can't remember how long mine took, possibly the year after I took the cutting.

Ah, thinking about it - the reason that border is currently neglected is that it was a failed hugelkultur mound, which may very well have had some bits chopped of my tree. Doh. But that's nice because it will fruit then at some point.

Now to see if I can shoehorn it in anywhere, having just got 6 new fruit trees for my birthday, or whether it's better to donate it elsewhere.

Nice problem to have! Thanks for the interesting link