Much cookery

[igenlode]

I acquired some more ground-plums (the windfall plums that one picks up from the ground; it beggars belief for me that the general public will happily strip the blackberries from alongside the path before they are properly ready, so that nobody gets to enjoy them properly, and yet is prepared to let ripe plums that fall onto that same path rot, get trodden into the ground, and otherwise go to waste, either because they don't know what they are or because they are terrified of 'dirt') and some windfall apples, and had to spend the evening cooking in order to combat the swarm of fruit-flies that were staggering around the kitchen. (The flies were already there but made a bee-line for any slightly damaged fruit!)

I ended up making a German plum cake (not terribly successful with these small wild plums, as the stones cling to the flesh and they cannot be halved -- in the end I just squeezed most of the stones out of the skins), a plum and apple crumble, and a sponge cake (unrelated), while peeling and chopping the remaining apples to put in the freezer as an emergency measure. It's just as well that I failed to pick any elderberries this year, although rather a shame...


These are the yellow plums from one of the other trees, which may be mirabelles -- but the red plums are the same size. It's because they are so small that they are able to fall from the tree without significant damage; commercial plums would split open after dropping from that height.

Comments

[watervole]

Oh! We collect those little yellow plums as well. Had quite a lot in the last few weeks. As you say, most of them are left to rot,

I avoid the slightly damaged ones as we eat them uncooked.

[igenlode]

I avoid the slightly damaged ones as we eat them uncooked.

I usually pick up and eat the slightly damaged ones straight away, i.e. the ones that have split on impact but are still clean and fresh -- they don't travel well but are fine for on-the-spot consumption. The unblemished ones can be carried home, although they will probably need picking over again on arrival after the trauma of the journey, and the ones that already have decayed bits from old bruising just have to be left behind, I'm afraid. You can cut off blemishes from damaged apples, but plums simply squish -- and they go off faster, as well.

[watervole]

Don't get split ones on the tree we used, it's the ones with soft brown spots that we discard. It spreads to all the others really fast - and there are so many plums that we can afford to leave those and still take all we can easily carry.

[igenlode]

I suspect that's the difference between falling onto an asphalt path (and from a considerable height, because it's only from the branches that manage to lean over the chainlink anti-trespassing fence) and falling onto the ground under the tree...

No, soft spots are a complete waste of time, especially on fruit this size. What attracted the fruit-flies in my case, I think, was the fact that a lot of the plums were so ripe that they were actually oozing droplets of sweet juice from the stem end!

I'm still trying to get rid of the wretched things (the flies, not the plums). I usually have a small population living inside the food waste bin, which they manage to repopulate weekly despite my washing it out every time the bin-men collect it, but they really exploded in numbers after they smelt the plums, and were buzzing around disconsolately all over the place on subsequent days after their food source was removed; I kept finding them inside cupboards, blinds, etc.

I had assumed that given their notoriously short life cycle they would all have expired of old age after a day or so once denied the opportunity to reproduce...

[watervole]

I've had to keep my food waste bin outside my back door. The flies are breeding much faster this year.

But that won't be an option for you.

[igenlode]

Well, I could technically speaking keep it on the flat roof outside the kitchen window, but it would be very awkward to access -- and practically impossible to retrieve when full without spilling the contents all over the kitchen sink!

[erimia]

The ground-plums are pretty much the only ones I pick, because I'm not climbing these trees. :D I boil most of them in sauces and jams so the overripeness isn't a problem. No flies so far but they do attract lots of ants.

The plum harvest have been scarily abundant this year. I have only one plum tree that bears fruit systematically and it's been dropping large amounts of fruit for more than a month, even before most of it was ripe. I had to pickle the green ones because there were just so many of them, it would be a pity to see them go to waste.

[igenlode]

https://nichempire.com/long-handle-fruit-picker-pruning-tool-for-pears-peaches-apples/
The plum harvests I've done have all involved using long-handled pickers, now that putting ladders up against trees is considered far too dangerous to be tolerated -- but of course for almost all fruit trees this technique means that at least half the fruit is hopelessly out of the owner's reach, unless the tree has been actively dwarfed. It also gives you a new appreciation of just how *heavy* the human head is when not being balanced on top of the spinal column; looking constantly upwards for long periods makes your head feel very heavy to support indeed!

One year my younger brother and my father brought back a vast number of distinctly underripe plums, and we had to find ways of using them; plum barbecue sauce and chutney worked quite well with sour plums.