THIS morning, I grabbed a bowl from the cabinet, went outside and picked my breakfast of fresh figs.

No, I’m not vacationing near the Mediterranean coast. Nor am I in California or the South. I’m at home in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, where the fig tree in my tiny garden is covered in ripening fruit.

I’ve had the tree for 15 years, but when the figs arrive, it still seems like a miracle. As a lifelong New Yorker, harvesting fruit off my own tree wasn’t something I expected would become a late-summer rite.