August is the month of abundant figs and dahlias.
Dahlias are improbably bright and cheerful. They are just now coming into their own. A few weeks back I found a Dahlia-growing operation in Merville in the Comox Valley run by two unrepentant hippies. I gave them my copy of Dancing in Gumboots: profiles of pioneering counter-culturistas who moved to this area in the late 1960’s. How could I not offer the book to the women? They seemed to know everyone who merited a chapter.
I shall return to the farm to buy tubers in the fall - perhaps some Ferncliff Copper and Calamity Shame to go with the Alberta Sunset and Bud da Pest Blush. Meantime, Victoria’s neighborhood dahlia beds are a source of delight. I particularly appreciate the gentleman gardener whose retired golf clubs serve as stakes.
Fig harvesting is in high gear. The rental house has a mighty fig tree in the back yard - the largest in all Oak Bay, I’m told. It is a challenge to nab the ripest figs before the raccoons reach them. Not quite ripe figs often bear claw scratch marks - having been tested & rejected by the varmints. A day or two can make all the difference in sweetness. as the furry connoisseurs know all too well. My tree must produce a hundred pounds of fruit. As a consequence,I am becoming infamous for my largesse. Bowls of ripe figs are presented to the crew at the work site. Roasted figs appear in a quinoa lupini, zucchini and spinach salad for a friend’s dinner. Homemade vanilla ice cream with fig jam (simmered with cinnamon, honey, brown sugar, ginger, lemon rind and pistachio) grace the tables of those who are helping me with landscape planning and pet sitting. Special ones are given license to do their own picking when I am away - so fecund is this tree. My landlord came over - ostensibly to power wash the driveway - but he stayed after I had left - not I think to clean, but to glean - the lure of the tree and its fruit is simply too great.
Google “glean” and “figs” and up comes this passage of woe and hunger from the Bible: “For I am as when the summer fruits have been gathered, as when the vintage grapes have been gleaned and there is no cluster to eat, no first-ripe fig that I crave. But for now - in high summer with that tree in the yard, it is impossible to imagine such deprivation.
Figs were among the first fruits cultivated by man. The Aztecs used Dahlia tubers for food.