The Cottage Smallholder

I love figs.When I bite into the first ripe fig of the season, the pleasure is overwhelming. There is something very sensual about this fruit. I bet Anthony and Cleopatra had a bowl of figs on their bedside table.

Of course it’s the leaf, not the fruit, which has been endlessly immortalised in stone. I’ve never quite worked that out. Vine leaves are prettier and much more delicate. Perhaps the waxiness of the fig leaf was easier to carve.

Biting into that first ripe September fig is an experience that is both familiar yet curiously unexpected. This is not a fruit to grab and munch. The texture, the soft sweetness of the juice surprises. Figs might tempt me to steal but they force me to linger. No wonder it’s a favourite with wasps.

Our fig tree lives in a large half barrel, in a sunny spot just outside the back door. It was happy for three or four years. Now it’s outgrown its pot and is screaming for a new spot. Thinking of figs, I went to look at our tree when I came back for lunch today. Ignored for most of the summer, the last two sunny days had finally taken their toll. The branches and leaves were droopy and listless. I poured two buckets of water into the barrel and by the evening our fig tree had perked up. But there will be no harvest this year.

Fretting about the tree over supper, we suddenly thought of the perfect new spot for it, on the sunny side of the pond. It should thrive there. We’ll move it tomorrow. I can see it now, next summer, heavy with fruit and flourishing. Meanwhile, I am eyeing the plump ripening figs on our neighbour’s tree next door.