This spring, our -yr old plum wooden bloomed for the number one time. We kept an keen eye on them during the spring and summer season, watching the tiny balls in the middle of every blossom slowly develop to about an inch and a half in diameter. We saved thinking this may no longer be their final length, because of the fact the plums you see in the store have a tendency to be at the least inches all through, but reputedly ours are both a smaller variety or really smaller because of the fact the timber are extra youthful, because when they reached an inch to an inch and a 1/2 of throughout, they progressively commenced to exchange coloration. Unfortunately, additionally they progressively began out to drop off the wood earlier than they had completely ripened. I don't suppose we were given a unmarried plum off the Mount Royal tree, and we controlled to harvest only one rosy-hued Opal plum in advance than losing the rest.
So what you notice right right here in this bowl is quite a terrific deal our entire plum harvest: about seven Golden Gage plums, each slightly large than a big cherry. However, small as they have been, they had been though very tasty. Brian, not normally a top notch lover of plums, bit into the first one he picked and commented,
Fortunately, our other fruit-bearing plants have been much more productive. We've already harvested eight cups of cherries, and that was only from four of our five bushes; the little Jan bush in the middle of the row was later to ripen than the others, so its fruit was still green two weeks ago. But it's now ripening nicely and should be ready to pick in the next week, so we probably can probably get another cup or so there. And as you can see above, the raspberries have started to produce as well. True to the pattern they established in their first year, they've been giving us about a handful at a time for the past few weeks, and by yesterday, we were finding so many ripe ones that we couldn't hold them all in our hands and had to use my hat as a receptacle. (I thoughtA Hat Full of Raspberries sounded like a Newberry-award-winning children's book, but Brian believed it would be more appropriate to use Raspberry Sun Hat as the name of an alternative band, along the lines of Strawberry Alarm Clock.)
As you may or may not be able to judge from the size of the hat, we got a good half-pint of raspberries from just this one picking. As it happened, we'd just returned from a trip to the local farmers' market at the time, and Brian noted that a comparable volume of organic blackberries would have cost us five bucks—so the raspberries are definitely earning their keep. And moreover, there's lots more where those came from; there are lots more berries on the canes, ranging from barely big enough to see to almost ripe enough to pick. So by September, we should be bringing in a truly bountiful crop—possibly even enough to "put up" some preserves for the winter.
All in all, I think our fruit crops are justifying the effort we put into planting them over that one long, dirty, chilly March weekend two years ago. The raspberry canes are yielding a good yearly crop already, and the cherry bushes, while still small, are producing enough for a few good desserts each year. And the plums, even if they're not very productive yet, at least offer a promise of tasty fruit for the future. Plus, at the rate they're growing, they may even be able to provide some nice summertime shade in a few years.
