CAMBRIDGE — Sometimes the most interesting gardeners, doing the most unusual gardening, live literally around the corner, under ones nose, in plain sight. Yet we whizz by, absorbed in our busy lives, and never think of stopping to investigate, as we might if we lived in a small village where cars were not a necessity.

For years I’d driven by a yard that edged onto a busy thoroughfare near Cambridge. Even at 50 m.p.h., I could see metal stakes driven into the ground at close intervals and some saplings planted along the border of the land. With time, more stakes appeared and the trees grew taller.

A tree lover must live there, I thought, a gardener intent on creating a forest from scratch, probably to dull the sound of the river of traffic nearby. But the stakes looked awfully close together. “I should stop and advise that gardener to give the trees more space,” I thought, then dismissed the idea. Was it my place to give free advice? I might get the door slammed in my face. Perhaps this was a new method of growing trees.

A few days ago, my curiosity got the better of me. I stopped and knocked on the door of a house that looked small compared to the sea of metal stakes, dormant plants and trees surrounding it. A small man with a halo of curly grey hair and twinkling blue eyes came to the door.
“Excuse me, but I was curious to know what you’re growing in your garden,” I said, then explained about the gardening column.

“I have no garden. It’s a vineyard,” he replied.
Miguel Figueira, “Fig” to his friends, is a retired teacher who taught Spanish for nine years at Cambridge-South Dorchester High School and for 14 years at Easton High School. When he moved to his house 11 years ago, he “started with 20 vines, then bought more and more,” he told me. Now, he has 400 – varieties of grapes from around the world. “I have Chardonnay, Riesling, Cabernet, Sauvignon….I make wine – red and white.”

At the top of my mind, of course, was, “Is it legal?” I added tactfully, “I don’t want to get you into trouble.”
“Oh yes, if it’s for your own consumption,” Miguel said, “A person can make up to 100 gallons of wine without paying tax. The last time I made 350 or 400 bottles. I give it to my friends and I entertain. It’s not to sell. I drink some, but not the whole thing!” (I checked the law on this later. Federal and state law indeed allows the making of wine for private consumption — up to 100 gallons per adult.)
Miguel invents names for his wines, often naming them after his friends. A bottle of white he kindly gave me reads: “Fig’s Choice, Earth-Friendly, Premium Wine, No Sulfites.”
The trees that border his vineyard are fruit trees: Fig, cherry, apple, peach and pear. He planted most of them 10 years ago and paints the trunks white to repel ants. When the branches are not bare, as they are now, “The leaves keep the noise from the road down and they keep it cool in summer,” he said.

Here and there, metal arches support climbing roses and strings of fairy lights. They carry the eye down paved paths that wind through the vineyard. Miguel built the paths, too. There was nothing but grass in the yard when he bought the house, he told me. The roses bloom in red and yellow — colors of the Spanish flag — and in white.
Miguel’s latest project, about half finished, is to pave the area between and around his fruit trees “so I won’t have to mow.” Echoing the complaints of many a gardener, Miguel added: “It’s a lot of work, I’m beat up! I just finished pruning last week. I have to cut the grass in between the vines, sometimes put down fertilizer, and I have to put nets over the vines otherwise the birds…Last year, I didn’t put nets on them and they ate half of it!”
He explained the birds’ strategy: “They sit on the electric wires” at the end of his property, “as soon as I’m gone, they dive down and eat the grapes!”

Miguel sprays the crops on his 0.6-acre lot three or four times a year “otherwise Japanese beetles eat all the leaves.” Like many of us, he reserves particular invective for Japanese beetles: “There are millions of those! They’re horrible!” And he sprays to prevent diseases and fungus.
Miguel buys his grapes online from a nursery in New York State, near Buffalo, that “has grapes from all over the world,” he told me. He’s divided his vineyard into seven sections: Spanish, American, French, German, Italian, Argentine and Chilean. He purchased his fruit trees from Lowe’s and Walmart.
The vintner/teacher learned how to grow grapes and other plants from his parents, who farm in the northwestern Spanish region of Galicia, on the Atlantic coast, not far from Santiago de Compostela, the regional capital. There, “everyone has small vineyards and makes wine,” he said.

One of the reasons Miguel loves Dorchester is that it resembles the land where he grew up: “The coast, lots of hunting and fishing,” he said, adding quickly, “But I do not fish. No, no! No fishing!”
When he came to the United States at age 17, Miguel went to work at one of Baltimore’s finest restaurants, Tio Pepe. He stayed for 20 years, rising from waiter to host to manager and learning to cook specialties like paella. He also attended college and eventually became a teacher.
As he showed me around the vineyard, Miguel explained: “We give a lot of parties here – two or three big ones every year, 80 to 100 people.” But the pandemic has ended that temporarily, “I miss it.” He has fire pits, grills, picnic tables and about 100 chairs. There’s a roof garden and several clearings in the vineyard and under three huge cypress trees, where friends can gather…friends who come not only to eat, drink and make merry, but who help Miguel plant vines and trees and press the grapes for wine the old-fashioned way, by stomping on them with their feet.

Asked what advice he would give other Dorchester gardeners who wanted to grow grapes, Miguel said: “If you like wine and plants, I think it’s a really good hobby. It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it. I love it!”
Editor’s Note: Laetitia Sands is a master gardener in Dorchester County.