Plum Ideas, Tips & Guides

Worcestershire provides some of the country’s loveliest scenery. With the Cotswolds to the south-east, the Malverns and the Shropshire Hills to the west and several notable rivers, including the Avon, the Severn and Teme running through it, this is a fertile, bucolic landscape that’s perfect for exploration and very conducive to agriculture. 

When we think about fruit trees, we are all like one had to wait for a minimum of 6-10 years before they could be ready to pick the harvest from. What if we told you there are some that get ready to fruit in no time?

A pattern has emerged that I do not understand. On planting a new plum tree, it takes a couple of years to establish and then flowers and bears fruit for several years, whereupon it stops flowering altogether and just puts on growth. The same thing has happened with damsons and greengages, but apples and medlar in the same area are trouble free. My orchard sits on light, sandy, well-drained soil; the ground is manured at planting and a 1m grass-free circle is around each tree for its first five years. Have you any suggestions to get the trees reflowering? NH

The Victoria plum, Prunus domestica ‘Victoria’, is Britain’s best-known plum variety. It produces heavy crops of delicious, egg-shaped fruits, ideal for use in jams and chutneys, as well as eating straight from the tree.

The Victoria plum, Prunus domestica ‘Victoria’, is Britain’s best-known plum variety. It produces heavy crops of delicious, egg-shaped fruits, ideal for use in jams and chutneys, as well as eating straight from the tree. Prunus domestica ‘Victoria’ tends to be grafted onto a semi-dwarfing rootstock, which produces a compact tree suitable for small- to medium-sized gardens. A Victoria plum tree will reach about 4m in height. If you want to grow it in a container, choose a dwarfing rootstock such as Pixy.

How to grow loquat trees

Believe it or not, 2024 is almost here. With a new year comes fresh home design trends. We had to ask: what’s in and what’s out? We turned to a few interior designers and architects for their 2024 home trends predictions. After all, they’re the closest thing to a Magic 8 ball of design.

If you're lucky enough to have a fireplace mantel in your home, you won't want to miss out on the opportunity to decorate it this holiday season and create a beautiful display that the whole family will enjoy.

Also known as the wood mouse, the field mouse is a small, sandy brown mammal with big ears, big eyes and a long tail. Britain’s most widespread rodent, it’s common in woodland and grassland and also frequents gardens, even in very urban areas. It eats seeds (including bird seed), plants, caterpillars, earthworms, fruit, fungi and other foods such as cat biscuits, which you might leave out for hedgehogs. It caches food to store for leaner times, although these caches are often ‘forgotten’ – you may find piles of seed husks in a corner of your shed or beneath some membrane you have laid down to suppress weeds. If the seeds are large enough – for example if you find a pile of plum stones as I often do on my allotment, you may spot teeth marks on those that have been eaten. Different rodents leave different types of teeth mark on seed husks, so with some careful investigation you should be able to identify the field mouse as your hoarder.

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Daylesford Organic share this thoroughly warming recipe made with nature’s true superfoods, packed with the benefits of lean venison and seasonal ingredients.

Man Made Fruits are the result of careful crossbreeding, genetic manipulation, and a dash of imagination! Scroll down to know about the varieties engineered by humans in a lab or a specialized orchard. 

Chrysanthemum Flower Meaning holds a special significance that ranges differently from cultures and its colors. If you want to know what it signifies, keep reading!

Zone 7 offers a rich tapestry of fruits that not only thrive but produce juicy ones year after year. Read on to explore the most compatible, low-maintenance, and delicious Zone 7 Fruit Trees for your garden!

Almost anyone who’s interested in edible gardening would love to have their own fruit trees, but very few of us have the acreage necessary to grow full sized fruiting trees. All is not lost however, as some fruit trees are grafted on dwarfing or semi-dwarf rootstock that keeps the tree size down to a more manageable level. There’s a wide array of small fruit trees for the garden.

How to Grow Plumcots and Pluots Prunus hybrids

Fruits are nature’s little treasures, bursting with flavors and colors that make our taste buds dance with joy. So grab your fruity enthusiasm, and let’s dive into the world of delightful Fruits That Start With D!

I found some time (and a blackbird-free window!) to spend in the garden yesterday afternoon. After pottering around looking after my seedlings, and repotting my salmonberry, I had to do some watering. April has been uncharacteristically dry, I don’t think we’ve had any rain to speak of this month. Everything in a raised bed is doing OK, but things in containers were starting to wilt.

A cherry plum, sweet, thin-skinned and very prolific (you’ll also find it sold under ‘Red Grape Sugar Plum’). It was in the top three of our recent taste test and everyone liked it for its strong tomato flavour that’s sweet but not overly so, and its firm not mushy texture. It has a slight acidity running through it which all sweet tomatoes need. It ripens quite late compared to ‘Sungold’ and produces for a long period of time. It’s lovely in a mixed salad with the larger varieties. 

This summer has been damp and the plants have grown lush. In some way this has contributed to a dramatic cut in the number of greenfly on my roses and other plants (perhaps they found other feeding grounds or did not mate as prolifically).

The Japanese have a long and detailed affair with fruit tree blossom. Apricots, Prunus armenaica and Plums, Prunus salicina are well known to western gardeners but what of Mumes.

Plum Blossom with stamen and pistils waiting for bees to pollinate the flowers.

March is a good time to feed your Pears, Plums, Greengages and Blackcurrants.

I thought this was meant to be a bird box but the wasps thought differently.

Have a look at the Best Blue Fruits that you can grow along with different plants and flowers in your garden for a touch of royal tint!

We can employ many tricks to grow more fruit in less space. One key strategy that is very useful to understand is growing fruits as cordons in small spaces.

Cold Winter days call for warm, comforting soups. This is one of my family’s favorite on a cold Winter’s day! Roasting the vegetables helps to bring out their flavor, allowing for minimal added fat and salt, while not compromising on flavor. This recipe makes a hearty vegetable soup thick with tomatoes, onion, green bell peppers, mushrooms, potatoes, carrots, and barley. You can add additional broth if you prefer, and the soup also freezes well. To learn more about the safe handling of vegetables, check out HGIC 3517, Safe Handling of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables. Enjoy!

This year, more than ever, holiday traditions are important. One of my favorite traditions is making a centerpiece for my dining room table. Usually, this is a project I share with my grandchildren when they visit. We walk around my garden and collect attractive foliage, berries, and dried flowers.

Pyrus calleryana ‘Bradford’ was once touted as the perfect, sterile garden or landscape tree. It has now bred prolifically with other pear species and spread so extensively that it is now on South Carolina’s invasive plant list. Now is an excellent time to replace these pest trees with something more ecologically sound. We have several options to choose from at the South Carolina Plant Sale or visit your local nursery to find alternatives. The SCBG plant sale is online again this spring; details are here: https://www.clemson.edu/public/scbg/plant-sale/index.html

The spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) (SLF) is the latest non-native species to take hold in the U.S. This planthopper is large (about a half-inch long) and originally from several countries in the Far East. It was first found in Pennsylvania in 2014, and active infestations are now established in Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, and as of just last week, North Carolina. SLF has not been detected in South Carolina, but it is an insect for which we need to be on the lookout.

October 31, 2022“Soul, Soul, a soul cake!I pray thee, good missus, a soul cake!One for Peter, two for Paul,Three for Him what made us all!Soul Cake, soul cake, please good missus, a soul cake.An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry, any good thing to make us all merry.One for Peter, two for Paul, and three for Him who made us all!”

WHY AREN”T MY BULBS BLOOMING? Andre the Doodler asked, and (being the sometimes-oblivious type that I am) I said “They can really get exhausted.” Um, yup, apparently literally so, poor dears, or so it sounded to him. All that fighting the big old tree roots for food and water and craning your necks for a bit of sunlight will really do you in.

The fruits of ‘Juliet’ are somewhere between a plum and a grape or cherry type of tomato— just 2 inches long or so—and borne in clusters of 12 to 18. They’re small enough that I simply halved them (above) for the skins-and-all quick tomato sauce that I freeze 40 containers of each year. I am fascinated with this rich-tasting little plum, now bubbling happily on the stove. Johnny’s Selected Seed rated indeterminate ‘Juliet’ as their most disease-resistant variety in trials (no small honor), I learned today.I have Roberto Flores, the self-proclaimed Dirtmeister at Good Dogs Farm in Ashley Falls, Massachusetts, to thank for growing the brimming bag of ‘Juliet,’ and my crafty neighbor Susan Schneider of Shandell’s, who scooped them up for me yesterday, knowing I’d been complaining about being a bag or two short. And I have the Millerton, New York, farmers’ market to thank, too—appreciation all around, friends.Have you grown ‘Juliet’ (pac

More of a good thing, I guess you could say, and also deer-resistant.The Japanese plum yew has linear, dark green flat needles that resemble its namesake’s: the yew, or Taxus. Those are its needles and also its male reproductive structures, below; ‘Prostrata’ is all-male, and therefore makes no female seed-producing structures.While Taxus is deer candy, though, Cephalotaxus is rated as not to their liking by experts from geographic areas as diver

Growing fruit trees isn’t always easy. The pests, the late freezes, and the skill necessary to prune them right can feel a bit overwhelming.It’s especially frustrating when someone

An abundance of late summer fruits calls for a jam recipe. A simple jam recipe from Selina Lake will make the most of an abundant plum or damson harvest.