Plums or Gages (i.e. Greengages)?

[Swarf, Mostly!Participant @swarfmostly]

We've been asked to dog-sit for our neighbours while they're away for a few days. As a part of the arrangement they gave us license to 'help yourselves to the plums, there are lots and they'll only go to waste. Pick as many as you like.'.

A splendid offer. However, when I got up the ladder among the heavily laden branches I discovered that many of the bunches are badly affected by mould!

These neighbours have two trees, one is a Victoria Plum and I believe the second is a greengage but I'm not sure about that. The Victorias have already been picked. The second tree is, as I have said, heavily laden, some fruit is purple and some is still greeny yellow and firmer.

I'm posting this here because I seem to remember Clive referring to gages in the past but the more replies the merrier.

The fruit I have picked will inevitably have some mould spores – should I wash them or will cooking (plum crumble!!) cope with them? Will the firmer fruit ripen indoors?

My neighbour is not a gardening guru (neither am I) – is there anything he could spray the trees with next year to fend off the mould?

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

[Swarf, Mostly!Participant @swarfmostly]

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Bordeaux Mixture perhaps?

[David Standing 1Participant @davidstanding1]

My parents had a productive greengage tree in the garden 45 years ago, i've been partial to the stuff ever since – in fact, by coincidence, I picked up a jar from the local Wilkin supplier only two days ago!

[Dave DanielsParticipant @davedaniels93256]

You sure it's mould?

We had a damson and the fruits always had a whitish-grey 'bloom' which is, AFAIK, normal.

If it is mould it's probably botrytis and a search should produce images of that.

 

D.

Edited By Dave Daniels on 08/08/2017 15:12:14

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Sound's like the plum tree in our garden. Someone once told me what it was but I've forgotten…

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

The damp has been a problem for me this year. Lost most of the goosegogs to mold. However I cycle past a self sown plum which has dropped a load on the pavement, and there is one in the churchyard that has done quite well. I'm told those are the property of the Rector.

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Mould this year is a problem, you may have noticed that there are a lot of Fungi growing on lawns et. My Vic. tree has just this week started fruit rot where a grey mould appears and quickly spreads from fruit to fruit. Pick off mouldy fruit, do not compost but burn if possible. By all means wash the plums and also split them open to make sure you have no protein in them (Maggots)

Annually you should spray the tree with a tree wash, this will kill overwintering Aphis and kill off the mould spores.

The Plum maggot , you need a Pheromone trap placed in the tree about Apr/May which attracts male moths so they die.

Too late now to spray for mould, as it will affect quality of fruit. I was a few days late for the Greengages as my Nephew nicked them!

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I've eaten a lot of cherries this year. It's amazing how many people assume they are poisonous berries, especially where the cherries are planted for their flowers!

Neil

[Andrew EvansParticipant @andrewevans67134]

If you have lots of spare plums this is a great way to use them . Put them on trays in the oven, as low as it will go overnight. You end up with a juicy prune effect and they keep for a while in jars. Great as a healthy snack .

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I made plum and barley wine once when we had a glut of plums. Absolutely delicious, and super strong. Of course I wouldn't touch the stuff now honest!

[Anonymous]

Both my gage and plum trees are fully laden this year. The gages are nearly finished, but the plums won't be ready for another few weeks.

Some of the gages have gone mouldy, not sure if this is some sort of disease, or they're simply over-ripe. Either way I wouldn't eat them. They're generally mouldy all over, not just a small patch. Some are in bunches, maybe damp (?), but others are singles in a group otherwise unaffected. I'm eating them every day at lunch, have made gage crumbles, given loads away, put several bags of them in the freezer and they still keep coming. Last time I had a bumper crop I bought another freezer, but I really don't need a fourth one. They're taking more power than the machine tools! I've got a load of jam jars arriving tomorrow so the plan is to make a big batch of gage jam.

When the plums arrive I'll do the same. Eat, cook, freeze and more jam. Plus some plum brandy.

I've also got a bumper crop of medlars, so more medlar jelly is in sight.

The gages seem unaffected by insects, other than wasps which eat the fruit once it is over-ripe. But I do have issues with plum moths. I have the traps, put out in late May and another sticky pad put in during late June. A number of the first plums picked seem to be affected, but after that it falls right off.

Andrew

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

You can get pheromone traps for most pests, Apple moth (Codling moth) Plum moth and also for pests on pears.

I also at one time bought a Pheromone trap for wax moth ( A pest in Bee hives) but only caught 1 moth so a waste of money that one. You can buy all sorts to control ground pests like slugs and stuff.

Tree washes should be applied in winter on a dry sunny windless day drench the bare branches. Most are now NOT pesticide so safe for pets.

Tree sticky band is still available but needs renewing regularly.

Ants are a pest and will carry Aphis up a tree and make colonies on the new leaf growth. I find that a small spray bottle with about half a teaspoon of wash up liquid will kill Aphis and ants.The wash up liquid is a surfactant and gets into the breathing spiracles and they drown! Applies to most insects including Wasps. If you see your fence panels being chewed then wait until the wasp appears and spray him.

Clive

[Swarf, Mostly!Participant @swarfmostly]

Thank you to all of you for your replies.

I plan, rain permitting, to take a few photos later today.

Please can anyone (Andrew?) help me to understand the difference between plums and gages?

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Or gauges perhaps (being an engineering forum)?

[Anonymous]

I don't think there is any significant difference between plums and gages, at least genetically. Plums tend to be larger and oval, whereas gages tend to be smaller and round. But it's not an open and shut rule. Damsons are also part of the same group.

Possibly more important is self-fertile or not. If not you need a second, matching tree. Both mine are self-fertile even though they are next to each other, Oullin's Golden Gage and Majorie's Seedling plum.

Andrew

[the artfull-codgerParticipant @theartfull-codger]

Gages are green & yellowish when ripe [hence greengages!] [well mine are here in north yorkshire]we've just picked ours, & victoria plums are purple when ripe,a few weeks to go till ours are ripe.[yum yum ].

[richardandtracyParticipant @richardandtracy]

Made 11lb of jam from our 'Cherry Plum' last week. The plums are small-ish & round. Don't taste very nice as plums, but when cooked slowly for 4-6 hours to make jam, it produces jam that looks like dark brown tar. However, the taste is like a sweet-tart explosion in the mouth. One of the most complex tastes I've come across, unlike anything I've ever bought in the shops & absolutely gorgeous.

The tree produces several hundred pounds of plums every year (it's over 80 years old), but a majority go to waste – there is only so much plum jam one can eat in a year, especially when blackberry jam is available too. We used to bottle stewed plums, but once again, the plums are not very nice like that.

It would be nice to have our Victoria Plums, but most get severely maggotted prior to being ready, and peeling the little good flesh away is very slow & dispiriting. We have a 'wildlife' garden, so we use no insecticides, and the crop is usually wasted. The apples & pears bottle nicely, but we seem only get a reasonable crop every other year. Unless great care is taken about sterilisation after filling the bottles, the fruit rarely lasts to the second year. However coddling moth is a problem and when preparing the apples, I often get a maggot mush on the chopping board.

I look forward to the time when we get some hazel nuts of our cob-nut trees. They are usually eaten by the Dormice before we get any. And I wish the walnut tree would grow a bit, we put it in 10 years ago, and it has only grown 3" since.

Regards,

Richard.

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Richard read my post regard Pheromone traps. With regard to the small Cherry plums, here they are known as, 'Bullis'.

Take care with bottling Pears as they are difficult to sterilize and I have had them explode in the Kilner jar.

With fruit in jars do not let the light fall on them in storage as it makes the fruit discolour. Dark is best! When using sugar for bottling Cane sugar is better.

My dog is up on her hind legs trying to get the Vics. off the tree before I get any!

Clive

[David Standing 1Participant @davidstanding1]

Posted by Clive Hartland on 10/08/2017 09:16:23:

My dog is up on her hind legs trying to get the Vics. off the tree before I get any!

Clive

I used to have a Labrador that was a brilliant apple scrumper. Anything below about 4' (his up on hind legs height) was gone!

He also used to polish off the gooseberries and blueberries

[David Standing 1Participant @davidstanding1]

Edit

Whoops, sorry, double post – forum slow.

Edited By David Standing 1 on 10/08/2017 09:49:32

[egaParticipant @ega]

Posted by Clive Hartland on 10/08/2017 09:16:23:

"With regard to the small Cherry plums, here they are known as, 'Bullis'."

Here in Kent they would be Bullace, I think

[richardandtracyParticipant @richardandtracy]

Clive,

We get as much fruit as I can cope with bottling, and all the insects feed the Slow Worms, Grass Snakes, Adders, Common Lizards, so while maggot mush is unpleasant, the benefits are worth it. I can live without Vic Plums. If I have to. We have 3 cherry trees, and haven't had any cherries in the last 2 years, birds have had them all. And the cats have eaten some of the birds, so we benefit indirectly.

As for bottling, I use sauce jars, mayo jars, jam jars & the like. We would only recycle them otherwise, so one extra use for fruit or jam works well. I gently simmer the jars for 10 mins in a water bath to sterilize, and all the while make sure there is no boiling going on in the jar. The advantage of normal jars (compared to Kilner Jars) is that the metal caps have one of those 'poppers', so you can tell if it's properly sealed, and I think the metal cap will bend and release the lid before the glass bursts. The only type that doesn't have a popper is the mayo jar, but I try to avoid using them if possible – Hellmans don't use a water soluble label glue and it tends to melt off under the initial sterilization, sticking everywhere.

I always keep the jars in the cool & dark, the discolouration of some of the stewed plums in the light was disconcerting after my first attempt years ago.

Regards,

Richard.

[Swarf, Mostly!Participant @swarfmostly]

As promised (threatened?) I managed to take a few photos this afternoon. They, i.e. the photos, haven't come out too badly considering the sunshine was so bright I couldn't see the viewfinder!

Here goes:

In a lot of cases the mould gets much worse than that shown in the second photo. It can totally cover a spray of fruit and the branch end and leaves, gradually shrivelling the fruit.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

We have a small pear tree in the garden that currently has just one solitary pear. It's approaching readiness – I guess a couple of weeks to go before the wasps are ready for it. The tree had about 20 embryonic pears at one point earlier in the year (barely acorn sized) but the dog figured out what they were and ate all but one. God knows how he knew what they were at that stage – I guess they smell the same as a ripe one.

Murray

[Author]

Posts