JournalSeasonal notes
The Last Figs of October
On the week each year when the garden gives up its final fruit, and why we build a dessert around it.
12 October 2026 · 6 min read
There is a week in October when the fig tree at the top of our garden in Greve gives its last fruit. The figs are smaller than in August, darker, with skins that split on their own. They are the best of the year.
We have learned not to plan for this week. It moves with the weather. Some years it comes at the end of September; in 2024 it came in the first days of November, after a long warm autumn. When it arrives, the dessert changes overnight.
“You cannot schedule a fig. You can only be ready for it.”
The leaf, not just the fruit
Fig leaves are the part most people throw away. Steeped in warm cream they smell of coconut and green walnuts. Ines makes a gelato from them, which she serves beside the warm fruit with a spoon of cold buffalo milk from Paestum.
It will be on the menu for as long as the tree allows. Then it will be gone until next year.
