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!
Continue reading ‘Last of the Summer Plums’
recent commenter drops!