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Tuesday 9 August 2011

Fruit Harvest

Today marks the start of our fruit harvest (not counting the strawberries in the pot by the door). A few years ago we planted some Blackthorn in a hedge, and up till now we've had no cause to doubt they were Blackthorn. But this year we have an abundance of wild plums - both yellow and red. We picked a few samples and checked (on Google of course), cautiously nibbled and marked them as fit to eat. The yellow ones are ripe and almost ready to drop, so this morning Henry took the Manitou down and picked three bucketfuls. They taste as plums should, but there's too many just to eat - so this afternoon I'll be trying out a few recipes and freezing. There's loads more, and the red ones (which taste much better) are not ripe yet. Next month it will be apples and pears (we've still got some in the freezer from last year, so I'll have to try to get on top of them).

2 comments:

derekt said...

Hey, we were picking wild plums just like these - yellow, pink and red - a month ago. Arthur reckons ours are Bullers - but without the thorns.

They're delicious: try them in a crumble. Judith's frozen some and I've bottled a few (50/50 spicy syrup and cheap brandy). As there were a few too many for bottling we just had to taste them: with a scoop of ice-cream - mmmmm (hic)!

Strickley said...

So far we've just picked 34 lbs. Most will be frozen as they are. But some will be turned into ice cream tomorrow. Crunble ready made for dinner tomorrow.

Did Arthur mean Bullaces? I thought they were more like sloes?