So what does 65-year-old Woodbridge resident, Alfredo Tamburini, a barber by trade, know from figs? Let’s just say the siren song of the fig seduced him some 25 years ago, and after unveiling some of her secrets he hasn’t looked back. That’s how long he’s been growing his beloved figs, along with a farmer’s roster of vegetables. “I grow everything,” he says, “from tomatoes, eggplants, radishes and beans, to four types of hot peppers. I’ve redesigned my entire property to accommodate all the vegetable gardens.” Point taken. Somewhere beneath all the lush vegetation lurks Tamburini’s house. “It’s a lot of work, and I enjoy it. But, I must confess, my real passion is figs.”
Tamburini, who came to Canada from Cosenza, Calabria, in 1965, and still maintains a barber shop in Aurora, did not inherit a green thumb or an orto/giardino tradition from his family, nor did he consult books or other gardeners for his foray into fig horticulture. “I learned by trial and error,” he says. “And started with a single fig plant from Calabria.”
Over the years, Tamburini experimented and honed his craft, with his share of failures, but in the end mastered the delicate and demanding art of growing figs, a fruit more commonly associated with the Middle East or the Mediterranean, not someone’s backyard in Woodbridge, Ontario. Tamburini now boasts 10 different varieties of figs, with a total of 40 fig trees, all kept in pots. And all this without a greenhouse or the use of hydroponics. His latest innovation: fitting the pots with wheels that allow for easy transport. “In the winter I used to bury the plants,” he says, “but now I wheel them into the garage and cover them with carpets.”
And how does his family feel about his passion, or rather his obsession? “My grandchildren Michael and Olivia love it!” he laughs, and although his wife Liliana’s car has yielded its winter parking spot to the figs, she is supportive. “She loves to eat figs,” Tamburini says. While his sons Alessandro, 40, and David, 35, are unlikely to extend the tradition, his daughter Sonia, 28, tends the gardens when Tamburini vacations to Cosenza each summer. “I love it,” she says. “It brings him joy, so it brings me joy. But it’s a lot of work – a round-the-clock proposition. It takes an hour and a half just to water the plants.”
Tamburini doubts Sonia will continue the tradition, and she admits that managing vegetable gardens of this magnitude holds no interest for her. But she has felt the sweet pull of the figs. “I think I will take on the figs, at some point,” she says with a laugh. “It’s really all about the figs, after all.”
Ah yes, the figs. At fig harvest in mid-September, Tamburini shares the bounty, delivering bags of figs to his two social clubs and distributing them to family and neighbours. He claims that one of his fig trees, a variety of Mission originating from Italy (also known as Black Mission or Franciscana, aubergine-skinned with luscious strawberry-red flesh), yielded fruit almost as big as peaches, figs of a “fantastic sweetness.”
Despite his generosity with his sumptuous figs, Tamburini doesn’t invite too many folks to view his gardens. “No no no no,” he says with comic emphasis. “I keep the gates closed.” This is, after all, his private sanctuary, his refuge. A place of secrets. Or perhaps he takes the words of John 1:48 to heart: “It was an enjoyable thing to rest, meditate on God’s word, and pray in the shade of the fig tree.” Or in his case, the shade of 40 fig trees.
