Rotterdam gardener reaps fruits of his labor

PHOTOGRAPHER: Marc Schultz

Alex J. Stramenga Fitzpatrick, 6, picks figs with his grandfather Alex Stramenga along Kelly St. in Rotterdam.

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As summer winds down, the fruits of Alex Stramenga’s labor are just starting to ripen.

Standing in his garden on Wednesday in the front yard of his Rotterdam home, Stramenga reached high into a tree and plucked a fig. The tree has been standing for 45 years, he said, only a year less than he’s been living in the neighborhood.

“It’s not easy to grow figs in this kind of atmosphere,” he said.

Despite the region’s cold winters and at times unfavorable gardening conditions, Stramenga has kept his fig tree strong for decades. Gardening is his passion, he said, though it’s close to a year-round hobby.

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To maintain the tree throughout the year and ensure it bears fruit, Stramenga said he buries it in the winter and digs it out in the spring. In the early months of the year, he insulates it using Styrofoam, wood and plastic.

The Rotterdam resident typically gets a yearly crop of close to 1,000 figs from his tree, he said, spread over two separate blooms. One comes in the early summer or late spring, and the other, larger crop usually comes in during the late summer.

Typically, Stramenga will share the figs with friends and neighbors, and said he sells some of them at local farmers’ markets. In addition to figs, he grows tomatoes and peppers in his garden, which sits along Kelly Street. The hot summer has actually helped the plants mature more quickly, he added.

“There’s nothing like a homegrown veggie,” he said.

Stramenga usually has help in his garden. His grandson, Alex J. Stramenga-Fitzpatrick, 6, also enjoys gardening. On Wednesday afternoon, grandfather and grandson climbed a ladder to pick figs out of the tree.

“You have to pick them at the right time, because once you pick them they don’t get any riper,” Stramenga said.