Friday, July 09, 2010

Will this be a plum year?

We have, or had, two plum trees in the back yard. When the storm named Xynthia hit at the end of February this year, the two trees fell over. Half of the roots are still in the ground even though the trees are horizontal. I thought that maybe they'd be stressed enough to put out a good crop of fruit before they die.

The plums are just starting to ripen. They'll turn mostly yellow when ripe.

So far, I think I was right. We decided to leave the trees where they fell over the summer to see what happens. The trees are still alive and are producing a nice looking crop of plums. We water the roots from time to time just for good measure.

A multitude of plums on one of the downed trees.

Once we harvest the fruit and make pies, preserves, and maybe some ice cream, I will cut the trees up for firewood. Then we'll have to fill in the holes and think about what to plant to replace them. Ken has grown some new plums and apricots from pits, so that's likely what will go into the ground next year.

8 comments:

  1. Is there no chance of righting them? Even if when you set them up they rde a little higher then when they were fully the earth and you had to build up the soil in a mound around the trunks? It's such a shame to lose to well-bearing fruit trees.

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  2. Well, at least it'll be easy to
    pick the plums.

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  3. I'm glad your plan is working. Lewis and I still remember the good plums we had chez vous last summer.

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  4. Sheila, exactly right. Easy pickings. Then we can enjoy the plums AND the firewood.

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  6. Evelyn, those yellow plums were amazing in late summer 2009. And a couple of the trees they grew on blew over like ours did. They weren't on our property, but just next to it. Our plums were good too, but ripened earlier in the summer.

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  7. From the pictures, it appears you're going to have quite a crop.

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  8. will, we had neighbors who tried that and their trees fell over in the first wind. Ours were never really good producers to start with, so we won't be losing much (except some shade).

    sheila, exactly!

    evelyn, :)

    starman, we hope so!

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