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Illustration by Marley Allen-Ash
Every August, I gird myself for battle. Not with fellow Torontonians in the great escape from our urban heat island, with everyone clamouring for a sliver of beach. I can’t leave town during these lazy, hazy days of summer. That’s because my contest takes place in my own backyard. And to let my guard down now would mean forfeiting a carefully curated harvest. Let me explain.
I have a grape vine in my small, sylvan patch of paradise. It’s not the common Concord variety that springs untended and wild from cracks in concrete patches in downtown back alleys. No one seems to notice those, even when they reach fulsome maturity and sag from the hydro poles and telephone lines they occupy. With waxy skin and large seeds, they’re not even appealing to the birds, raccoons, skunks, opossums and who knows what other vermin prowling the city streets late at night in search of a meal. Those critters have their sights set on my backyard.
The pursuit of this juicy bounty is an ageless dance, to be sure. But I don’t remember Aesop ever mentioning sleepless nights or disturbing the neighbours in his apocryphal fables such as The Fox and the Grapes. The ancient Greek storyteller didn’t include domesticated pets among his anthropomorphized menagerie. And it is the dogs in my life that make the presence of grapes so vexing.
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When a defiant raccoon is pressing its paws against the glass door off the bedroom at 3 a.m. while it schemes to shimmy from the deck onto the treasure-laden trellis, we are all awakened. My partner mumbles in her sleep – something like “Get rid of those damn grapes” – while both our dogs howl at the intruder. And who can blame them?
I’ve studied the dining habits of these uninvited guests over the years. One summer it was birds who couldn’t get enough. So I wrapped the vines in a fine mesh above and beneath the trellis. That did the trick, surprisingly.
Another summer, a stealthy creature managed to evade the obstructions I put in its path – garden hoses, collapsible chairs, pinwheels, heavy tarps, even a slew of Slinky toys – and managed to eat its way without detection through an enormity of grapes. I only caught glimpses of its silhouette and never did identify the thief.
And the mess they make. These creatures leave desiccated grape skins in the hundreds after each midnight raid. The daily ritual of cleaning up only underscores my sense of defeat. And I’m reminded that this incursion is self-inflicted: The animals bypass my immediate neighbour’s Concord vines. “Phooey to those. They’re not even ripe in August,” they must tell themselves. But my variety peaks early, and they all seem to know it.
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I planted Sovereign Coronation, a grape my late wife discovered on a road trip through the Niagara region. These blue- and purple-hued beauties are sweet and seedless, and we enjoyed finding them at farmers’ markets through the late summer.
About a year after she passed suddenly, I decided to plant a vine in her memory. I learned from the farmer who sold me the root stock that Sovereign Coronation is a Canadian-bred variety, well-suited to our climate and early to ripen. And, like most other varieties, takes five years of growth before a single grape appears.
I tended that vine tucked up against a wooden fence and watched it slowly spring to life. There was no direct sunlight at ground level, so to encourage its progress I would place a large mirror opposite and bounce some warming rays its way. Today, the vine covers a four-by-three-metre trellis and provides dappled sunlight on the patio dining table.
Despite the annual onslaught by raiders, there always seems to be enough of a crop for us. I share with the neighbours and do my own gorging of the harvest. And I learned a new way to eat these grapes: freezing them in bags to enjoy well into fall.
I can’t take down this vine. The effort to get to this point won’t be sullied by restless August nights when it’s often too uncomfortably hot to sleep anyway. I entreat my partner to abide this passionate pursuit, even though I’m sure my late wife would side with my new love and say, “Take it down and get some sleep.”
Paul French lives in Toronto.
