Thursday, June 11, 2009

Just Plum Crazy

I love plums. The Santa Rosa plum tree was one of the first things we planted when we bought our home (along with the wisteria). For almost 29 years I have enjoyed several weeks of fresh plums right off the tree each June. I even have a special plum tradition and this week marked the beginning of plum season in my garden. Yes, earlier this week I picked a plum, polished it up and sat down to enjoy this year's first yummy, juicy taste. Now that I've held the inaugural event I am able to share the crop...the kids ate quite a few for lunch today. It is important to hit the ground running as far as plum eating goes...once they begin to ripen you can be inundated quickly. Don't hoard the harvest! No matter, you will never keep up. Luckily, the crop is usually cyclical, bearing heavily one year and lighter the next. This is a light year and I'm happy for that since I still have frozen plum puree in the freezer and a dozen jars of jam in the cupboard.
At a certain point we start offering bags of plums to the parents and when my assistant's tree starts ripening we'll hold their kids hostage unless they take a bag. Well, maybe not quite, but the season is short and intense and it seems such a shame to waste such a great summer fruit.
We'll finish them up just in time to start eating peaches from my generous neighbor's tree.


7 comments:

Kathy said...

Would you like a recipe for Plum Pie? It actually calls for Italian Prune plums, whatever they are.

growingagardenindavis said...

I would love that recipe! Prune plums are narrower, drier and sweeter...very good for baking! Santa Rosa's don't bake well but I often buy prune plums at the farmers market. Someday I hope to have my own tree...

Carol Michel said...

Yummy! Those plums look good. I love that you have an event each year for the first plum!

Carol, May Dreams Gardens

Christine said...

Simply gorgeous! Happy eating (and sharing!).

MA said...

I wish you could ship me a big ol' box of those. MMMMMM.

sweetbay said...

Those plums are beautiful.

growingagardenindavis said...

I feel so blessed to have that tree!