Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
|
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Wild Plums
|
#2
|
|||
|
|||
Wild Plums
"Roger Tonkin" wrote
Nick says... In article , Roger Tonkin wrote: Whist out today, we remembered that we had found a few plum trees growing wild a couple of years ago. Visted them and picked about 4lbs to make jam. They are quite small, damson size, but not the shape of a damson and the flesh is quite yellow. Skins vary from red through to blueish. The trees are a mess, the lower branches being stripped bare by the cattle and dead wood every where. They are situated around the ruins of what I think is an old farm cottage which to my knowledge has not been inhabited (or even had any walls standing) for at least 20 years. What I wondered was if this might be an old variety of plum that perhaps is rare, but how do I find out? With difficulty. Looking at Clapham, Tutin and Warburg, I would be hard put to tell Prunus domestica from P. cerasifera. The point is that both are very variable. It doesn't make a lot of culinary difference. If the fruit are definitely good, it could be a definite old variety, otherwise it might just be a tree (grown from a stone) that was good enough to leave alone. . There are about 4 trees, 3 on one side of the ruin and one on the other, so a stone is not the answer. Sounds like what the French call Mirabelles, small round plums from which they make a favourite jam. Lots of trees around here and once you know what to look for the more you see. Usually a windfall on the road or pavement give the trees away and in our experience the red ones make the best jam. -- Regards. Bob Hobden. Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
Wild Plums
On 09/16/2012 11:47 PM, Bob Hobden wrote:
Sounds like what the French call Mirabelles, small round plums from which they make a favourite jam. That was my thought also. |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
Wild Plums
On 17/09/2012 09:07, Emery Davis wrote:
On 09/16/2012 11:47 PM, Bob Hobden wrote: Sounds like what the French call Mirabelles, small round plums from which they make a favourite jam. That was my thought also. Do they come in 3 colours (red yellow and green? We have some locally that were obviously planted by the council to form a kind of high hedge. Small round fruit about 10 mm in diameter but began dropping about a month ago. They didn't look particularly appetising and the birds certainly weren't interested, so I left them alone too. |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
Wild Plums
In article ,
stuart noble wrote: On 17/09/2012 09:07, Emery Davis wrote: On 09/16/2012 11:47 PM, Bob Hobden wrote: Sounds like what the French call Mirabelles, small round plums from which they make a favourite jam. That was my thought also. Do they come in 3 colours (red yellow and green? We have some locally that were obviously planted by the council to form a kind of high hedge. Small round fruit about 10 mm in diameter but began dropping about a month ago. They didn't look particularly appetising and the birds certainly weren't interested, so I left them alone too. Quite possibly Prunus cerasifera but, as I said, I don't know how to distinguish it from some varieties of P. domestica without a chromosome count - an expert MIGHT be able to, but I wouldn't bet on it. P. domestica is P. cerasifera x spinosa (sloe), but the latter is a hybrid of P. cerasifera and Microcerasus microcarpa! I have also failed to track down EXACTLY what mirabelles are, though I think that they are a variety of P. domestica ssp interstitia. However, we had a very good gage that was ancient and died of fungal infection. One of its seedlings produced red, rather insipid, fruit and the other produced fruit indistinguishable (as far as I can tell) from that of P. cerasifera. So we have kept it, as it cooks well. So, unless a tree looks exceptional in some way, it's probably just worth calling it a wild plum, and using it or ignoring it to taste. Regards, Nick Maclaren. |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
Quote:
"Mirabelle", whatever that means, is commonly sold as a hedging plant, so if some trees are not inconsistent with the kind of thing that is sold is Mirabelle, lets call them that, being aware it is a rather vague description. |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
Wild Plums
On 09/17/2012 10:48 AM, stuart noble wrote:
On 17/09/2012 09:07, Emery Davis wrote: On 09/16/2012 11:47 PM, Bob Hobden wrote: Sounds like what the French call Mirabelles, small round plums from which they make a favourite jam. That was my thought also. Do they come in 3 colours (red yellow and green? We have some locally that were obviously planted by the council to form a kind of high hedge. Small round fruit about 10 mm in diameter but began dropping about a month ago. They didn't look particularly appetising and the birds certainly weren't interested, so I left them alone too. There is a fair variation in colour, and there are a few different varieties. The do drop pretty early. We grow 'Mirabelle de Nancy' and the only difference is that the birds love them. They're not particularly sweet, but make nice jam or tarts. |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
Wild Plums
On 17/09/2012 12:40, Emery Davis wrote:
On 09/17/2012 10:48 AM, stuart noble wrote: On 17/09/2012 09:07, Emery Davis wrote: On 09/16/2012 11:47 PM, Bob Hobden wrote: Sounds like what the French call Mirabelles, small round plums from which they make a favourite jam. That was my thought also. Do they come in 3 colours (red yellow and green? We have some locally that were obviously planted by the council to form a kind of high hedge. Small round fruit about 10 mm in diameter but began dropping about a month ago. They didn't look particularly appetising and the birds certainly weren't interested, so I left them alone too. There is a fair variation in colour, and there are a few different varieties. The do drop pretty early. We grow 'Mirabelle de Nancy' and the only difference is that the birds love them. They're not particularly sweet, but make nice jam or tarts. Nobody picks these fruits but these days that's no indication as to their taste. They don't pick the damsons, sloes, or blackberries either Too busy staring at their phones :-) |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
Wild Plums
"stuart noble" wrote in message ... On 17/09/2012 12:40, Emery Davis wrote: On 09/17/2012 10:48 AM, stuart noble wrote: On 17/09/2012 09:07, Emery Davis wrote: On 09/16/2012 11:47 PM, Bob Hobden wrote: Sounds like what the French call Mirabelles, small round plums from which they make a favourite jam. That was my thought also. Do they come in 3 colours (red yellow and green? We have some locally that were obviously planted by the council to form a kind of high hedge. Small round fruit about 10 mm in diameter but began dropping about a month ago. They didn't look particularly appetising and the birds certainly weren't interested, so I left them alone too. There is a fair variation in colour, and there are a few different varieties. The do drop pretty early. We grow 'Mirabelle de Nancy' and the only difference is that the birds love them. They're not particularly sweet, but make nice jam or tarts. Nobody picks these fruits but these days that's no indication as to their taste. They don't pick the damsons, sloes, or blackberries either Too busy staring at their phones :-) lol we have a nature reserve behind our house and pick what we can. In previous years we picked cherryplums and they were lovely. This year, although there were plenty, they were sour/astringent -- -- http://www.shop.helpforheroes.org.uk/ |
#11
|
|||
|
|||
Wild Plums
"stuart noble" wrote in message ... Nobody picks these fruits but these days that's no indication as to their taste. They don't pick the damsons, sloes, or blackberries either Too busy staring at their phones :-) Ain't that just the truth. My plums and damsons have been very poor this year, but a mile away there is a plum tree in someone's front garden that is absolutely dripping with nice yellow fruit which is just falling on to the pavement. It looks like a "Syston" plum, a variety which was developed in the next village to me (Syston) hence the name. Having googled for Syston plum, it is mentioned somewhere on http://www.goscote.co.uk/fruit.htm (which is a hard site to search) which is a nursery the other side of Syston! so maybe it did not catch on outside Leicestershire. My plum trees are Syston plums but they are approaching the end of their life, as are a lot of the ones around here. They are a good-sized plum, for cooking and eating, and deserve to be more widely recognised and taken up. IIRC they were very popular when they were developed, but that may be 50-60 years ago which is probably when mine were planted. They will probably be extinct soon. Can I persuade anyone on here who would like to plant a plum tree to try a Syston plum? It sounds like the website I quoted has them - and if anyone has them, they should have, although how you could order off there I cannot see - maybe they have another website under Goscote Nurseries. What I quoted was the only site I found that mentioned the lovely Syston plum but there's no way of refining the search once you get to the site. I feel quite evangelistic about the Syston plum now I realise it's dying out because of lack of promotion outside its home ground, so to speak. Here's your chance to save a heritage plum! A secret one wot we only had around here ;-) |
#12
|
|||
|
|||
Wild Plums
In article ,
Roger Tonkin wrote: Whist out today, we remembered that we had found a few plum trees growing wild a couple of years ago. Visted them and picked about 4lbs to make jam. They are quite small, damson size, but not the shape of a damson and the flesh is quite yellow. Skins vary from red through to blueish. The trees are a mess, the lower branches being stripped bare by the cattle and dead wood every where. They are situated around the ruins of what I think is an old farm cottage which to my knowledge has not been inhabited (or even had any walls standing) for at least 20 years. What I wondered was if this might be an old variety of plum that perhaps is rare, but how do I find out? With difficulty. Looking at Clapham, Tutin and Warburg, I would be hard put to tell Prunus domestica from P. cerasifera. The point is that both are very variable. It doesn't make a lot of culinary difference. If the fruit are definitely good, it could be a definite old variety, otherwise it might just be a tree (grown from a stone) that was good enough to leave alone. There are about 4 trees, 3 on one side of the ruin and one on the other, so a stone is not the answer. Four stones? :-) More seriously, if they ALL produce fruit that varies from red to blueish, it could well be a definite variety. However, if the trees vary between themselves, some kind of casual selection is more likely. Remember that the fetish for named varieties is very recent, in cottage garden terms. Regards, Nick Maclaren. |
Reply |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
first ever wild hazelnuts today; organic plums | Plant Science | |||
Wild wild rocket | United Kingdom | |||
flowering plums - when to limb up? | Gardening | |||
Plums | United Kingdom | |||
Plums | United Kingdom |