Wild Plums!

[Mini Horses]

My plum tree bloomed in FEB when we had an unusual hot week, then all bloom killed with freeze following week. No plums this year -- 2nd yr in row with similar conditions!

We are lucky to find a wild persimmon around here. Interntional Paper owns thousands of acres -- pine. Harvested and replanted.

 

[baymule]

I strained out the juice after cooking the batch I had in the pot and got a gallon. Now I have 2 1/2 gallons in the refrigerator and 3 cookie sheets of ripening plums waiting to be cooked off.

 

[baymule]

@Mini Horses these wild plums seem to never be fooled. They are a every other year producer, probably because they receive no care. We had several late frosts this year, yet they are producing like mad.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

My plum tree bloomed in FEB when we had an unusual hot week, then all bloom killed with freeze following week.

UGH!

 

[Britesea]

no plums for us either, this year On the other hand, it looks like a bumper crop of apples, so I need to get them sprayed soon or I will lose the whole crop to codling moths. I put down a bunch of beneficial nematodes this year, so I hope they will help too.

 

[Mini Horses]

When do you spray the apples? I have always used the (?) oil-soap (?) don't have it in front of me but, organic. What do you use?

So my plum tree gets almost the same as wild -- little care, LOL -- but, it is a domestic variety. That makes it "think" it needs an assist. Silly tree! My goats -- who occasionally get to roam the yard -- have taken the liberty to trim it neatly for me. Yep it is nicely even to the height they can reach standing on hind legs -- as are MOST trees along all the fence lines.
This is why the new apple trees will require their own fenced area.....or will be dead within about one visit from them.

Those wild trees my grandma used to have did well without any care. Sure some had spots, etc. but, overall on their own.

 

[baymule]

Today I canned 7 quarts of plum juice. I have plenty of jelly for now, so I just canned the juice. I have a half gallon in the refrigerator and still have those 3 cookie sheets of plums to cook. Tomorrow we’ll go picking again, might be the last time.

 

[Mini Horses]

It's a lovely color. I used to make a lot of concord grape jelly and strawberry preserves. While I eat little of it, my DH loved it and his grandkids didn't even know it wasn't Welch's. We had an old grape arbor at our farm & I picked strawberries at a local grower. Lovely results!

I used to love Damson Plum jelly. A friend had a tree. Different taste & quite nice. Enjoy the free fruit!!

 

[milkmansdaughter]

@baymule Yum! Ive got plums about that size and color on my counter. Im not sure if they are similar, but ours are supposed to be green plums, which seem to be popular around here. (They're supposed to still be green when ripe.) But the most recent ones I got were still kind of hard.(I didn't pick them. I got them at a corner stand.) They turned the same color as yours when I left them there a day or so. I really like plums. We used to have several big trees when we lived in Washington State.

Today, I got a call to go help pick peaches. I didnt even realize they were ripe in our area yet. But we recently had a lot of rain, and these trees were so loaded the branches were breaking. Some are still small and not quite ripe, but we picked all of them on the broken branches to get them off the ground. Even the small ones have a good flavor. Woohoo, God is so very very good!

 

[baymule]

Lovely peaches, that’s a nice haul! Indeed, God is very good and gives us his blessings.