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Talkback: Plum trees
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Agree about California plums but I think that the Victoria is over-rated. You can do anything with it, cooking, eating, preserving, plum brandy, but it has a rather bland flavour. Agree that Czar is darn near the perfect all round plum. But if you have enough room then growing that sweetest of plums, the Greengage or Goldengage and that most interesting of jamming and cooking plums, the damson (makes great liqueur too), is well worth it. Thanks for a thought provoking blog.
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I make lots of plum chutney, a big family favourite.
I have not tried the greengage here but am contemplating it, although I do think we should be growing fruits and vegetables that are suited to the areas in which we live for best results.
Along with some golden plums I have on another 1/2 plot(unknown variety, supposedly unique to our site), I've cropped over 200 lbs this year.
Plums are easy to grow but you have to watch out for the plum moth which seems to prefer some varieties (larva in the fruit). Pheramone traps are the way to attract the moths before they lay their eggs in the developing fruit.
One thing I recommend to increase the crop of good plums (or any other fruit like apples) is to spend time removing any fruit that appears damaged. The tree will continue to put it's energy into all it's fruit, so by removing the bad ones it only has the good ones to concentrate on.
Inspect your trees several times a week during the fruiting season - quite a relaxing thing to do on summer evenings. You may think you are removing quite a lot at times but the result is worth it. The tree puts all its energy into the good fruit and not shared it with 50% which are not useable.
I would really love to hear more on freezing/storage on fruit & veg.