Plums

[MaryG]

My neighbour and I have a deal - I get to pick the plums from her tree on my side of the fence and she gets the apples from my tree on her side of the fence. It works out well for both of us.

Her plum tree is a purple prune plum (say that real fast) and this year it's just loaded. I just picked a plastic dishtub full of great plums, washed them, split them and threw away the seed and now they're on a cookie sheet in the freezer. Tomorrow I'll bag them up for winter use.

Her mom told me she used them frozen last year to make plum cakes, I guess they're something like pineapple upside down cake but with plums. Sounds good eh?

Maybe I should pick some more and make some jam.

[erdine]

Mary, plum jelly is delicious. we use it with turkey, and also crabapple and cherry jelly. my brother just brought a big bag of apples in, guess hewants some apple pie. :lol: they're really nice apples this year.

[terese]

mmm...I miss having plum trees.

[digiflower]

mmmm :mellow:
winter food B) hmm always wanted to visit a Island. ;) :lol:

[erdine]

best place in the world, digi. come on up

[SilenceOfTheClams]

While in Montana, visiting Aunt Elsie... it's a big thing to make sure you pick up ALL the plums.... otherwise they ferment and the elk, deer 'n bears get "honking drunk" on 'em.... THEN you have a problem on your hands!!!! Seems the mountain lions LOVE to take down the local drunks!...... So I went out thinking I'd just "rake them up".... :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
THAT'S LIKE trying to play pool with a comb! They are "un-rakable" but do scatter about with each swipe of the rake making it's "sprong sprong" sound. Ended up stooping over for HOURS dragging baskets full of them to the bear proof trash containers after Aunt Elsie said.. NO MORE IN THE HOUSE!

Her plum jam takes the cake..... and so does her Plum/Currant Jam... BEST by far!!!

I can still see those most colorful indigo/purpley fruities lighting up the yard! What beautiful things they are! :D :D

[MaryG]

Clams that's a nice memory - thanks for sharing it.

[HarleyGal]

In the mountains of VA and W VA they use plums to flavor their moonshine! :D

[MaryG]

My grampa was a prairie wheat farmer - he used to make moonshine from wheat powerful stuff!

[erdine]

oh my Mary, I grew up on a priairie farm too, and my grandpa made moonshine. terrible stuff. whereabouts did he farm?

[MaryG]

Started off in Saskatchewan somewhere in the middle of nowhere and ended up in Peace River country in a place named Spirit River. He and grandma had FOURTEEN children - I guess that moonshine was pretty potent stuff.

[DandyLioness]

OMG clams! You're too funny! :lol: BUT I NEVER thought about the fermentation! You made a good point. My plum tree is pretty naked this year. Last year - tons... this year - nope.

[MaryG]

This year the tree is just covered with plums. I guess trees have "off" years don't they?

I searched the net last night and found a recipe for Oriental Plum Sauce - the type you get with egg rolls or chicken strips. It looks pretty yummy so I'm going to try a few jars. You probably make it with red or yellow plums but I'm going ahead and try it with the prune plums - what have I got to lose?

[MaryG]

I just made 5 jars of Oriental Plum Sauce from an internet recipe. It's a lovely dark colour and tastes great! Can't wait to try some on chicken strips or maybe eggrolls.

[Rich]

This is a nice thread.

Wish my Victoria plum tree produced something decent. This year it had about 20 plums, last year hundreds, but they were scabby and rotten. It's got to go. :ph34r:

[bjmots]

Sounds yummy. I just got finished with a batch of pear honey. My mom and dad's pear tree was just drooping under the weight of all the pears. And, since I'm the only that cans anymore I got the bulk of them.

[digiflower]

I had Three plums on our last standing plum tree. :D

NO need to tell ya who ate the other two plum trees we had. :rolleyes: -_-

[Ginny42]

Sounds delicious MaryG, how about some coconut shrimp with that plum sauce? yum!!!

[MaryG]

Mmm coconut shrimp or coconut prawns are one of my fave foods!

Rich - I find the best plum trees are the good old prune plums - they're easy to grow, produce well and don't need a lot of care. Our neighbour neglects hers totally and still we get buckets and buckets of fruit.

[MrSeedy]

Not to change the subject , but I was informed by a friend that has tart cherry trees in her yard, that I'd never get any decent cherries off my sweet cherry tree, unless I "sprayed" the trees to prevent worms in the fruit, but I'm happy to say with no spray whatsoever, I saw absolutely no sign of worms on my cherries! However, it seems every apple tree in this area has "wormy" apples come harvest time and the tree next door never gets one decent fruit on it , though it produces probably 20 bushles minimum of apples every year. That tree has never been cared for however, and it's huge!!

[Rich]

I have a cunning plan. I am going to prune the plum tree to the ground and replace it with 5 column fruit trees. I now have a source for them.

That way I can spray all the nasties without risk of spraying the pond.

[MaryG]

Sounds like a space-saving plan to me Rich. What kinds of fruit do you want to plant? We have one of those type of column apple trees and it seems the apple trees have some problems associated with them. They need very deep watering often or they won't set fruits. I don't know about the other types of fruit though. I love the looks of long lines of the column fruit trees growing in orchards.

[Rich]

I was thinking along the lines of 2 eating apples, 1 cooking apple, a damson and a pear.

Next stage is varieties. DW likes hard crispy apples that hurt my teeth. Granny Smith for her, and maybe Newtons Wonder or Cox's Orange Pippin for me.

I don't know whether to go for a Conference pear or a yellow one.

The growers don't have a web site unfortunately, so I'll have to phone them up.

[SilenceOfTheClams]

Oh Rich..... THE APPLE of the century to have are the "HoneyCrisps"!!!! I SWEAR!!! Ask anyone that's HAD them... they make the Fuji's cower in FEAR I tell ya!!!

Last year was the first year I've ever seen these gems on the market here... worth checking into! :wub: :wub: :wub: :wub: :wub: :wub:

[TransplantShock]

plum jelly... :mellow: :mellow: :mellow: OMG....the best stuff on earth. Its even better then (GASP!) chocolate! :wub:

[MaryG]

Made the plum jam today - 5 jars. Transplant because of what you said about plum jelly I strained some of just the thick juice into a small container to try out plum jelly. It's going to be my "sample" taster in the fridge. It turned out the most beautiful colour, a deep clear red.

[TransplantShock]

Made the plum jam today - 5 jars. Transplant because of what you said about plum jelly I strained some of just the thick juice into a small container to try out plum jelly. It's going to be my "sample" taster in the fridge. It turned out the most beautiful colour, a deep clear red.
Yes, it makes a very pretty jelly! :wub: Wonderful for gifts and the taste is marvelous! :wub:

[mla2ofus]

I love plum jam and am going to look up the recipe for plum sauce. The only plums I've seen in this area are very small, about the size of large grapes but they are really good. A friend of a friend has a lot that I can pick. The old timers here call them wild plums but they are only growing in people's yards so how can they be wild?? Some people also grow "wild" apricots. They are grape sized too and sucker like crazy but they're good to. Makes great jams and apricot cobbler but it sure takes a lot of them!

[TransplantShock]

I have a cunning plan. I am going to prune the plum tree to the ground and replace it with 5 column fruit trees. I now have a source for them.

That way I can spray all the nasties without risk of spraying the pond.
Um...You DO know that if you do that it will sucker allong the entire root system, dont ya? :ph34r: Plums are notorious for that....and ive expirienced it myself....

[Rich]

That is another reason for getting rid of it. The suckers are all over the lawn even more than the rhus typhina.

Finding the roots shouldn't be too difficult, I'll just dig under the suckers.

[TransplantShock]

You will be surprisesd how far and how many roots the tree had....believe me LOL!