One of the established fruit trees we inherited at Dreamland is a beautiful delicious plum, which so far has been bearing very well the last two years. In fact, initially we wanted to keep Dreamland all natural, without bird nets. But the clump of four trees that this plum is part of typically bear so well, and get so ripped apart by the birds, that we succumbed to the pressure and enclosed the whole clump in permanent nets, which we roll up out of season. There are more fruit trees outside the nets, so the wildlife gets its “fair share.”

However, this particular tree has a particular little quirk – and that is, everything gets ripe at once! No not “at once”, like in the same week as other fruit trees, this is literally all “at once!” As you pick one, plum, the four next to drop off like lemmings off a cliff. So you have to gently pick the whole bunch at once. We had a massive harvest and we gorged ourselves dark pink on the plums. After eating as much as we could and giving away lots to friends and neighbours, we still had three large fruit boxes left over.

So, what’s to do? Well, Patricia got going behind the cooktop. The first batch was turned into a delicious chutney.

The second batch was turned into jam – one lot plain plum, and the other lot infused with fresh myrtle from the garden.

Well, in addition to her great and healthy cooking skills, there’s a reason that plum rhymes with yum!

Of course, we were not the only ones to benefit from the plums. The young chooks had a feast as well. Initially they weren’t interested, until we broke the plums open and offered it to them. Then they got going!