Welcome to the New Plums Forum!

Where you can talk to others who are plum crazy too!

https://permies.com/f/436/plums

I want to grow plums that are so delicious and juicy that you have to lean over the sink to eat them. One of the only ways to get these types of plums is to grow them ourselves!

Anyone growing some good plums?!

Thanks Steve for starting all these great fruit forums! My passion as well. I will post some stuff in the next few days.

One of my fav fruit. we use to make jam, juice, and use in cook food.
this fruit suites hilly area

I love my chicksaw plum. It's a prolific fruiter and excellent early season bee forage. The fruits are small and slightly tart when ripe. If you like sour and crisp fruit, they're also excellent a bit before they ripen. My wife gets mad at me for eating them before they're ripe.  No pest problems for this native. A week ago this tree was coated with a heavy load of ice, but no branches broke and the flower buds that should open up in a couple weeks appear undamaged. Amazing.  I'm so fond of this plum I've been trying to get friends and neighbors to plant them. You should too if you're within its native range.

I'm not so sure about the santa rosa I planted. It never seems quite happy with life here. This summer will be the first season I could possibly expect fruit. We'll see how that goes.

Plums are one of my favorite fruits, too!  I don't care much for the Japanese-type plums that are what is usually sold in the grocery stores; I like Damsons and the prune plums much better (they actually have some flavor).  My grandmother had a small Damson tree in her yard on the Oregon Coast, and there were prune-plums in the old family orchard.  Mom and Grandma would can quarts and quarts of those, making sure to leave at least one pit in the jar for extra flavor, and we ate them as a treat during the winter, usually in a bowl with a little cream added.  Sometimes they would go into a cobbler or some other dessert, but usually it was enough to just have the plums in a bowl with cream.

Planted a Santa Rosa last year and putting in a Damson this spring. I tried a Damson last year and it quickly had canker so I yanked it out before investing all the time in a losing effort.

The food forest that I help to steward has two very productive plum trees, not sure of the variety but most likely Japanese or European . Problem is that plum curculio, black knot, and brown rot ruin all of the fruit! Out of desperation we're considering copper spray this year but worry about drift; there is a herd of goats within 25' and many people passing by daily. Has anyone on this forum managed to overcome similar problems?

We have two plum trees going in this spring, both Mooer's Arctic Plum.

I'm really excited about this plum variety. The earliest reference I can find is a newspaper clipping from 1884 from the Vermont Watchmen and State Journal. The variety appears to have originated in Aroostok County, Maine. There is some evidence as well that it did well in Woodstock, New Brunswick, Canada, which is about a 45 minute drive by highway from our homestead. I will definitely be diving more into its history if I can!

Margo Michaels wrote:The food forest that I help to steward has two very productive plum trees, not sure of the variety but most likely Japanese or European . Problem is that plum curculio, black knot, and brown rot ruin all of the fruit! Out of desperation we're considering copper spray this year but worry about drift; there is a herd of goats within 25' and many people passing by daily. Has anyone on this forum managed to overcome similar problems?

I don't know how the copper spray might affect the goats because I don't know what else is in it besides copper.  But goats require a great deal of copper; in fact, many of the health problems domestic goats have can be cured by giving them extra copper.  So it might not be the problem for them that you think.  Now, sheep would be a different story.  

If you have access to an agricultural extension agent, they might be able to help you find out if the copper spray was likely to cause any problems for humans or livestock.  Copper has been used for a long time, so there should have been research done.

I got some true seed for wild american plum (Prunus americana) in a seed exchange earlier this month. I plan on stratifying the pits in my refrigerator in some damp sand for about one month before planting them. Hopefully wild plums don't sucker too much. Perhaps I should grow them in a hedgerow.

Ryan M Miller wrote:I got some true seed for wild american plum (Prunus americana) in a seed exchange earlier this month. I plan on stratifying the pits in my refrigerator in some damp sand for about one month before planting them. Hopefully wild plums don't sucker too much. Perhaps I should grow them in a hedgerow.

I believe that most of them do sucker heavily.  If you plant them in a hedgerow, be sure to plant them very close together.  They need to be close for good pollination.

I have a large plum collection. I got it through seed exchange at first and then purchased seeds and plants from other nurseries. The seed exchange is  a great way to get new species and grow them outside of their range. If you want to exchange seeds with me this fall, let me know. Hard to say in the middle of winter what will be the crop.

I have two Brooks plum trees. They are an off shoot of the Italian plum, but they are four times the size. They have a honey like flavor and sweetness. They make the most incredible pies, and the comes out with the consistency of firm peach pie. I dry them in my dehydrator and make fruit roll ups. And they are just plain great to eat right off the tree. We start picking them when they are still slightly green, really good. I'm in Western Washington and get a huge crop nearly every year. I planted one over 25 years ago and another one about 12 years ago, both were bare root from a local nursery. They start producing fairly heavy in about 3 years from planting, but the fruit got really sweet and flavorful after about 5 years. My older tree seems to produce more and taste better than the younger one.
Brooks Plum, everybody should have at least one!