Little Yellow Plums (fruit I mean)

[Campfire]

Around where I live, in quite a few places, are planted lots of these trees. They are yellow and there's a really good crop. Today I filled a small pannier with them and am going to make some jam. Is there a special name for these or are these just little yellow plums? There are also a few red ones but they are a little more bitter. Also a bit higher up & I can't reach them.

I made lots of jam from them from last year and am still eating it, mainly because Mr Campfire is diabetic and can't spread it 1" thick on toast like he used to do.

 

[skudupnorth]

Have you been in my back garden ??? I have two trees that have never shown any interest in giving fruit in the 9 years i have lived here,except for this year......garden is full of the damn thing's falling on the garden !!!!

 

[Speicher]

Yellow egg plums

 

[HJ]

I think you might mean greengages...

 

[661-Pete]

I think I know the fruit you mean: in our French garden we have a similar tree which has sprung up wild, I think it may be a sucker from the scion of an adjacent cultivated plum tree. The fruit are quite palatable if a bit sour and insipid. We haven't tried using them for anything.

Not to be confused with our 'Mirabelle' plum tree, a cultivated variety of small mauvish-yellow plums, absolutely delicious. Sadly, we won't be getting a crop this year, the tree is a bit capricious about when it decides to fruit...

 

[Globalti]

Last year we made about 40 jars of victoria plum jam just from the branches of our neighbour's trees that overhang our garden; the neighbour lets most of theirs rot. Gave a jar to Colinj and we're still eating our way through the rest, got lots left, which is good because this year there are NO plums. Cooking apples on the other hand are going to be excellent this year....

 

[darth vadar]

Go on then. How many of you try and squash them when you cycle along ?

I know I do and it feels great when you squash a bit fat ripe one!

I'll just get my coat!!!

 

[Arch]

Go on then. How many of you try and squash them when you cycle along ?

I know I do and it feels great when you squash a bit fat ripe one!

I'll just get my coat!!!

And then you hit a really hard unripe one, and the wheel skitters and you're not prepared and you come off, and while you're being put in plaster you have to explain you were trying to kill plums...

(No, not happened to me, but it would, if I tried that...)

Looks like a good fruit year, by the brambles on the reserve and a couple of apple trees I saw on the way home yesterday.

 

[Campfire]

Yes, you have to be careful not to skid on them, there are so many fallen ones. A guy I was talking to the other day said you shouldn't pick them, wait till they've fallen. Finding a whole one on the ground is difficult and there are even ones on the branches that have gone bad or over-ripe, there are so many of them. Could do with one of those nets on a stick, as I'm not very tall.

I nearly fell off yesterday in the park, two kids came around the corner taking the whole of the road. I just had to jam on the brakes, which caused me to skid. Surprisingly I skid into the grass, managed to put the foot down before heading into a hawthorne bush! Grrr. If they'd been older I'd given them a talking to but they were too young to understand. (where were the parents?)

 

[Fiona N]

Looks like a good fruit year, by the brambles on the reserve ....

And the bilberries have fruit on them for the first year in I don't know how long, so we had bilberry pie for supper on Sunday - fantastic

That cold winter seems to have killed off the blight that was affecting most of the bilberry bushes and they've really bounced back this year despite the miserable 'summer' - or maybe they're just accustomed to warm damp instead of sunshine

 

[Campfire]

There are also sloes on the bushes, none at all last year. I think I have got all the locations pretty well sussed out now. The trouble is you then have GOT to have sloe gin or vodka after you have taken the trouble to make it.

 

[Arch]

We went sloe picking last year along the bike path, and at first it was a bit thin - then we turned off down a bridleway and bingo! A whole hedge, dripping with them. We went a bit mad....

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

We went sloe picking last year along the bike path, and at first it was a bit thin - then we turned off down a bridleway and bingo! A whole hedge, dripping with them. We went a bit mad....

Yep - an overdose will do that

Our Victoria plum tree is just starting to produce ripe fruit. There will be many trips up and down the garden. Only a few plums will make it indoors I predict

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

There are also sloes on the bushes, none at all last year. I think I have got all the locations pretty well sussed out now. The trouble is you then have GOT to have sloe gin or vodka after you have taken the trouble to make it.

It's a hard life isn't it