Giving a fig... to the birds

Posted on April 30, 2026

As always, this summer I had to net the figs. As soon as they began to ripen the birds noticed.

How do you know a fig is perfectly ripe? A bird has eaten it.

Figs are biblical. Certainly I enjoy eating figs under my vines, as Micah 4:4 extolls. Figs are laden with symbolism, with their sweet squishy interiors and discreet entrances. But for me, I think about my family.

We had figs (among many other kinds of fruit trees) in our suburban Hamilton garden, and every summer Dad would lovingly protect them, with various stratagems over the years. He gave up on netting once they grew big and contented himself with wrapping the best-looking near-ripe fruits with tinfoil, which the birds wouldn’t peck through. One of our fig trees had a real story. It was brought as a cutting from Dalmatia before WWII by my Nana’s neighbour, supposedly smuggled in a waistcoat. My Nana got a cutting from next door. And before his parents’ house was sold after they died, Dad took cuttings and grew them on. And then Dad gave one to me, in a pot, saying “when you buy a house you can plant this.” I did. And how my partner’s mum loved the figs I gave her, and my friend Marianne loves them when I give them to her, and I do too, but: so do the birds.

The tree is so big now that I couldn’t net all the figs, and the birds got their share from the unprotected ones, and I just hoped to save what I could. Even then, the white-eyes found the gaps in the netting and some days this summer I got up to find experimental pecks in supposedly safe figs, not quite ripe, and scraps of skin on a stalk from where the good ones had been. But I don’t mind. I got all the figs I could eat, and if the birds just leave me some, I’m happy.

I think I ate the last one of the year today. It was small, but good.

Also, from the old blog: Fig.

Tags: figs, food, gardening, happiness, irritation

Comments

Comments on blogs are the OG social media. If you don't see a form here, you can email me and selected comments may be posted below.