You can grow fig trees in pots or in the ground. If you live in hardiness zone 7 or lower, I highly recommend keeping your figs in pots. By keeping them in pots, moving them to an unheated garage or cellar becomes a simple task.
If you live in hardiness zone 7 or lower and you have planted your fig trees in the ground, you must winterize them.
Not too long ago I met a local fig grower who was winterizing two figs in an unheated, detached garage, but the garage walls and ceiling were insulated and sheetrocked.
He invited me to his house for a show-and-tell, and it was an eye-opener for me.
This person had a great system for what I call the fig shuffle, moving potted trees in and out of a protected area. He had made two dollies for his potted figs and had a rope attached to each dolly for easy transportation. Cool!
At the time of my visit, he told me that each tree was producing at least 70 figs per season! He lives in hardiness zone 6b in New York; he doesn’t wrap those trees and keeps them all winter in his unheated, detached garage. How cool is that?