Plums
Last week a friend who has some plum and apple trees called and asked if we would want to harvest what we could from them, as the trees were producing more than they could use. Of course we said yes! So we drove out with baskets and bags and spent two beautiful Wisconsin mornings in the countryside picking juicy yellow plums and tart organic apples.
Branches loaded with yellow plums. Kim picking apples in the background.
One of two laundry baskets full of plums.
I don't know the variety of the smallish apples but I'm planning to go back for more, as they will make some delicious cider and apple wine. We processed the plums by rinsing them well and removing the stones, which was a lengthy, sticky, gooey and enjoyable task. The effort resulted in two 5-gallon pails full of plum pulp and 9 jelly jars of gently sweet plum jelly that I made last night. The plum mash in the pails are in the first stage of fermentation on their way to becoming what will hopefully be some fantastic plum wine and plum brandy or eau de vie.
Plum jelly