Picking plums as they ripen

We believe this plum to be variety Warwickshire Drooper, but are uncertain. We found it growing in the garden of the first house we bought in Southampton in 1981, and took some suckers from it which grew true to variety (so it must have been growing on its own roots). We then grafted a few. As far as we can tell from books, it is either Warwickshire Drooper, Yellow Egg plum or Goldfinch, but it might be a new variety grown from a stone. We do not know, but it tastes great when fully ripe. Excellent also for cooking or preserves.

The lesson of this video is that many plums reach a better size when thinned, and ripen successionally, so you need to go over the tree and pick them as they become ripe, as revealed by subtle changes in colur. Don't pick them all at once.

This variety can be picked when it is green going on to yellow, and will then ripen in store. If you allow it to reach golden sugary perfection on the tree, with the red dots which denote utterly delectable ripeness, most likely rot and wasps will take over. Pick before perfectly ripe and allow to ripen in store.

PS you are very likely to be stung by a wasp while picking plums, look out for the wasp that has eaten into a hole in the plum, if you close your hand over it to pick it, you will be stung. If wasps are a big problem you can catch them in traps

PPS plum trees like this can yield an incredible amount of fruit sugar which cannot be all used as raw fruit for eating since plums do not store. There are various ways of preserviong plums-jam, chutney, freezing, drying (as prunes) and distilling to make eau de vie otherwise known as plum brandy or slivovicz. This is illegal in most countries, and if I had ever done it I wouldn't tell you, but I'm not a liar and actually I haven't. But I might if it was legal, and plum brandy is a truly lovely drink which could prevent the waste of plums which occurs in a good year when every grower has a huge crop which can't therefore be sold in time. Unless one is a determined tetotaller, there is a strong case for a more relaxed and reasonable approach to plum brandy. If growers knew there was a profitable outlet for gluts of fruit, plums woudl probably be more widely grown. They are a great fruit, but some years you get no crop due to frosted blossom, and other years there is a huge glut which wonlt travel or store, so uses like plum brabdy could grow the market, which incidentally would mean fresh plums should be more widely available, the lack of which has been bemoaned on British radio over the last week. Growers do not invest in plums as they are not always profitable: relaxed laws on plum brandy would make them more profitable, therefore more available.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• plums
• branmdy
• eua
• de
• view
• warwickshire
• drooper
• frutiwise
• stephen
• hayes

[telemarker77]

nice plumb tree.

plumbs are one of the few trees i dont have to spray with fungicide (copper sulfate) or insecticide (canola oil or rapeseed oil mix). they seem in the states at least were we grow santa rosa and satsuma to be very robust compared to say apples or pears. you can't grow pears organically here ex the asian pears as they are so disease prone. most growers use antibiotics on pears.

do you have to spray your plumbs and if so what is your spraying regime.

thanks for sharing.

[stephenhayesuk]

@telemarker77 Hi. We have some disease problems with plums, especially something called bacterial plum canker whcih kills trees. We have to spray against plum moth caterpillar, we use a pheremone trap to detect them and then hit with insecticide after that.

[Bresson92]

haha you cant even notice the gummyosis on the first plum DICK

[CelticReject]

I have just picked a good 1/2 a Tesco bag of wild plums from a tree that I know of up the road. Can't wait to make jam from them!!!

Nice plums *coughs*

[HandsomeSasquatch]

sorry for my ignorance are plums safe to eat when you find them on the ground?

[Thx1138d]

Plums, sir Plums

[MichaelLarson29]

i live live in canada and i have a plum tree which i never knew about the tree never sprouted plums till this t=year it died a couple of yeares ago and came back. some one told me i had a Klamath plum or a Oregon plum . how do i prune it so i get the best chance of it sprouting again and when are they ready to pick you know be cause there about 1-2cm bid and there not getting bigger and alot are falling off the tree. when should i pick them and how do i prune them to get the best tasting plum

[crazymanstephen]

@lostinxlation Plums vary widely and ripen different colours and different times, like other cultivated fruits. These particular plums (we believe they are Warwickshire Drooper but are unsure, grafted from an unknown tree) turn from green to yellow as they ripen, and when perfectly ripe (just before going squashy!) they develop little red spots.

You have to study your own fruits and learn from them. Microclimate, soil and season all have a part to play as well as the genetics of the variety

[lostinxlation]

Is your plum a type that doesn't turn red when ripened and you pick them early ? I'm asking this because my plum tree has some fruits that started turning red/yellow(it will be totally in red once ripened). Not quite ripe yet, but I want to pick them before birds eat them, however, not sure if picking them when they're still not fully in red and leaving them for a while to ripen them works.

[maraxxl]

This sort of plum looks like a Greengage to me. Check it on wikipedia. Regards.