Wild Plums

Wild Plums
4 pounds worth!


Made into

Just over 8 Half Pints of
Plum Jam

The pretty white flowering tree we have (really, just over the line into the north 40 - the 10 acre lot behind us) is a wild plum tree. I have been watching it flower and fruit (though only a few fruits in prior years) for the past 4 years. This spring I took the tree book out and discovered it was a wild plum.

This year I was watching the fruit grow and change colors. When they turn red, they either fall off or get eaten by the birds, so I thought I better pick them now. Several were a rich red, but most were yellow with red spots.

I was surprised to find a smaller plum tree growing next to the big one. Two wild plum trees.

I brought the fruit into the house, washed them and popped them into a soup pot with a cup of water. After "boiling" them to a nice mush, I ran them through the food mill. Not successful with the food mill, since the pits get stuck... I squished around in the goop until I got out almost all the pits and then put it through the mill to get the rest of the stems and skins. Ended up with 4.5 cups of lovely plum mush. A bit tart but it worked out fine. I added some fresh peach "juice" leftover from canning the peaches last week and Voila... enough for a box of sure jell to make Plum Jam!

Note: I keep the peach juice to use instead of Agave nectar or straight sugar in homemade bread. It was perfect to level up the plum mush. After adding the recipes 4.5 cups of sugar the jam passed the taste test (thank you tall). I look forward to it on homemade biscuits sometime next week.