June 14th, 2010 by admin

photo credit: Cheryl DeWolfe

One of my favourite poems by William Carlos Williams features the plum:

This is just to say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

How can you not fall in love with a fruit that evokes such an image? Plums are a stone fruit, like cherries, peaches and apricots — in fact “pluots” are a hybrid between plums and apricots. A south-facing wall that reflects heat will provide the largest fruits but plums do well in almost any location that gets at least a few hours of direct sun.

In A Treatise of Fruit Trees (1757),  suggests a wall with late afternoon sun in its plan for a small (two acre) kitchen garden:

The wall C receives but little sun, for it shines not upon it till three in the afternoon; but it may serve for fruits which ripen in summer, as cherries, plums, and some kinds of pears.

The book further  suggests that by training trees against walls will provide protection from wind in addition to the reflected heat.

There are by some reports as many as 2000 varieties of plums and most can be traced back to either the European (Prunus domestica) or Japanese (Prunus salicina) group. In general, Japanese plums are round where European plums are egg shaped, often with a point at the bottom end. Japanese plums are grown more widely in the U.S., but in Canada you can find heritage European plums just as easily. Damsons and Green Gages (a.k.a Reine-Claudes) (Prunus insititia), both of which are prized for jam and jelly making, are often grouped with the European plums.

The popularity of plums has led to many hybrids and varieties, making some trees a challenge to identify. At the left is an illustration from a booklet promoting several new varieties introduced by Luther Burbank through Fancher Creek Nursuries in Fresno, California, at the turn of the last century. Along with Gaviota, the brochure lists Formosa, Vesuvius, Santa Rosa, and Rutland Plumcot.

Despite the number of varieties in existence, only a handful are available commercially for orchards or through nurseries for the home garden. If you are lucky enough to have a heritage variety in your yard (or your neighbour’s yard), treat it well. Make sure it gets ample sunlight and water, and keep it well-pruned to ensure its continued fruit production. Plums generally give fruit for 20-40 years, depending on the variety, but may live another 40 years past that in “retirement.”

While researching this post, I came across a wonderful post on making sugarplums — plums preserved in sugar — the kind that dance through the dreams of children in Clement C. Moore’s “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” As cooking goes hand in hand with food gardening, you can expect more links to The Historical Cookery Page in future Garden History posts.

plums