Sunday 24 July 2022

Wild Plum Picking

 For the past few years, our wild mirabelle plums have been non existent. Either through drought, very cold weather or too hot weather. This year, we discovered the trees are laden and what is more, we have timed it right to harvest them.

We have a short drive to do so. Our usual place, we couldn't reach them as the lower part of all the trees have been trimmed back.

Off we drove to another nearby spot, where they tend to grow in the hedgerows. Luckily, we found about 8 trees/bushes.

Normally we have only found the larger yellow or smaller red ones. This year we found orange, yellow, pink, red and purple. I think the colour must have been affected by the weather. They were all on the small side so have decided to freeze them, then cook and remove the stones before use (jams, puddings, cakes etc):

We were getting hot and bothered after a short while due to bugs and the heat so came home to wash them. Once bagged we found we had picked 6 lbs!

I was hot and itchy so sat in the bath whilst DB filled up the sink. Two jugs of water over me, washed my hair and myself, 4 jugs to rinse, 'bath' finished. Boy, did I feel much better after that and it was a good conservation of water not taking a full bath.


13 comments:

  1. The trees near us have had poor harvests in recent years. The road they are on has been closed for a few days but reopened last night. I shall check on the way to church this morning and see if they have more fruit (and will take a bag in case we stop on the way back to collect any) Thanks for the heads-up 👍

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    1. Hope you find some. We will try again in another week for some more purple ones.

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    2. Update - some yellow ones, not quite ready...next Sunday however...

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  2. What a colourful collection of cherry plums, handy for winter

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    1. Yes, we will have the few leftover ones with pancakes later today.

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  3. You got a good amount there, I bet those jugs of water being poured over you felt SO good.

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    1. Felt better than a bath as I cooled down so quickly.

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  4. I love foraging in hedgerows, I need to go and check our local plums to see how they are coming along/

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    1. We are so lucky to be able to do so aren't we?

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  5. What a great harvest of plums. You will really enjoy them.

    God bless.

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    1. They are soft but slightly gelatinous so make lovely jams etc.

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  6. You had me at bugs. Heat I can handle, bugs not so much.

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    1. They were tiny fly like things but with rather large biting jaws so needed to remove them.

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