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I know that the last day of summer officially ended on Sep. 22, but for me, summer wasn’t over until we had plucked every plum from the Damson plum tree in our backyard garden. We have a few fruit trees in our garden, but the Damson plum tree is by far my favourite. Damson plums are small, oval-shaped, rich tasting, tart but sweet, Indigo-hued (dark blue) fruit and are excellent for making jams, jellies and pies. The fruit ripens as early as mid-August to early September.

We planted our tree about 4 years ago and in its second year, it yielded a good quantity of fruit. It is very rewarding, growing your own organic, pesticide-free fruits and vegetables. This year’s plum bounty was a whopping 625+, not counting the ones that fell down on the ground or were eaten by those cute, pesky, thievin’ squirrels. Actually, I noticed several mutant conjoined plums (cute twins!), so if you count those as 2, then I suppose the yield was actually higher, hehe.

Almost every year, my sister does canning of fruits that are store-bought and/or plucked fresh from our trees. Our house is usually never out of jars of homemade jams or jellies. A year’s harvest of fruit, some canning equipment and canning know-how can result in 30 to 45 jars. Provided you’re very careful in the canning process (no air pockets for bacteria to enter and grow), home-canned fruit can last in the pantry for several years. Heck, we still have jars of stuff made 5 years ago! Well, we don’t can them all as some get eaten out of hand, made into pies, cakes, etc… and yes, given away to friends and family. Actually, I really want to make some plum booze next year and I even found a recipe for it!

This year my Mom did the canning for the first time. Even though she used my sister’s recipe for Damson plum jam and followed the instructions without deviation (supposedly, but I know my Mom… she probably added her usual Mom’s touch), I really liked my Mom’s stuff better. It just seemed less sweeter, more fruity and with less pectin. Even my sister had to admit that it was better than hers. Well, that old saying “there’s nothing like Mom’s cooking” would definitely be true of my Mom’s cooking.

A few days ago, we picked the last plums (approx. 25) that were so high up on the upper branches, I think that’s why they weren’t picked much earlier. Click on the image to the left to see a photo of the last cluster of plums. They were much too overly ripe by this time to just eat out of hand, so my sister, the Dessert Queen whipped up one of her impromptu creations. It was a simple dessert of warm, baked plums with a crumbly streusel topping made out of butter, flour, cinnamon, shredded dessicated coconut, chopped walnuts and brown sugar, served on top of a bowl of cold vanilla frozen yogurt.

Click on the image to the left to see a photo of this yummy concoction. When I look at this photo, I realize how crappy my camera is. I wish I could take detailed macro shots of my photo subjects, sigh. And no, I wasn’t going to eat all that fruit on the plate. I was trying to style the shot and decided to pile up a bunch of plums on a big square plate. Did you notice that one mutant conjoined plum on the upper right? Also, that whitish stuff on the plums is called bloom (Damson plums have beautiful bloom) which you can see because I haven’t washed the fruit yet. I only like to wash picked fruit right before I’m actually going to eat them, otherwise, they get waterlogged. Lastly, the plums aren’t bruised… those dark spots are my fingerprints on the bloom. Yeah, my photo subject was MELTING, haha. Man, I want a new camera sooo badly…

Actually, my sister had wanted French vanilla ice cream to go with the baked plums, but I foiled her plans when she instructed me to walk over to our neighbourhood grocery store (it’s a 7-minute walk which is very convenient) to pick up some ice cream. I’ve been trying to eat more healthier stuff, so when I noticed a tub of Nestlé Parlour Vanilla Frozen Yogurt with the words 97% fat-free, I thought, eh why not give it a try? I’d never tasted it before and was a bit disappointed as it was a bit overly sweet. It wasn’t completely 97% taste-free (hehe, it was OK), however, I was expecting something a little more tangy, yogurty and like Yogen Früz. I conceded my sister was right - I should have bought French vanilla ice cream! Anyway, the combo still tasted and SMELLED great. Mmmm, I just looooove the smell of baking, especially the smell of sweet cinnamon in the air! It just makes the house smell like Christmas! Oh, noooo, wait… I don’t want to think about winter right now. I like snow but I HATE cold biting winds! Sigh, summer is truly over. What about you guys? What marks the end of summer for you?

Adieu,

fruity (and getting plummier by the minute)