Plums

When I first got my allotment in Hangingwater, Tabitha, Austin and Freyja and their friends Alex, Julia and Kal all clubbed together for my birthday and Christmas and bought me an apple tree, a morello cherry tree and a Victoria plum tree. The apple and cherry trees did all right for fruit. The Victoria plum, alas, never fruited. Every year it would produce blossom, but a bit too early - and the mid-spring winds would blow it off.

When The Under Gardener and I moved to Tupton we dug up the apple tree and the cherry tree but the plum tree had grown too big to move so we left it and bought a replacement.

Each year it has produced blossom early. And every year the mid-spring winds have blown it off.

So it was a pleasant surprise last year when we found a very small number of plums hiding amongst the leaves. Gave us hope for a plummy future.

This year the tree produced blossom early, and the winds and frosts got rid of most of it.  So it was a GREAT surprise to find that there were several plums hidden among the leaves - and a whole abundant harvest lurking on one branch!!

We picked them yesterday. And brought in a little over 4kg of plums. And that doesn't include the ones the wasps got to before us!!

They're all in bags in the freezer now, waiting for pies and cakes and things