Mar 21 2007
Promise of summer fruit, threat of a blackthorn winter
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Cherry plums: a promise fulfilled The fruit ripen in mid-July |
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The arrival of the cherry plum blossom in late February for me marks the turn of winter, the first promise of the fruits of the summer ahead. Suddenly winter’s drab colours are enlivened by stretches of brilliant white blossom on still leafless trees in hedgerows, at wood edges, across commons and on garden boundaries.
Wherever this earliest blossom breaks the greys and browns of winter, July and August will bring abundant golden or scarlet fruit, honey sweet with sharply sour skin. It’s often said, and repeated this month by Simon Barnes in the Times, that the cherry plum rarely fruits in Britain, but I’ve collected reliably good crops for years.
The cherry plum is a much neglected fruit. Neither cherry nor plum, it isn’t even quite the mirabelle, so loved by the French, for which it’s often mistaken. The cherry plum’s alternative name, myrobolan, suggests close kinship but the cherry plum is its own distinct species, prunus cerasifera. It’s native to central Asia and a parent to cultivated plums and gages.
The better-known blackthorn follows the cherry plum into bloom almost a full month later and is now appearing as the cherry plum blossom drops. The past few days have seen a classic blackthorn winter. The cherry plum’s early young fruit should weather such cold snaps but they’re more threatening to delicate garden peaches also coming into bloom.
No kidding, I have similar picture posted in my blog today! I took the flowers in a nearby park :D
[...] a south-facing wall for warmth, are in bloom. After the modest white blossom of the early flowering cherry plum, the lurid pink of the peach is a herald of the nectar sweet summer [...]
Just found your site and I’m very impressed - it appeals to the researcher in me and I suspect you’ll see me back ;-)
How abotu posting a picture of the cherry plum fruit? I am sure that these are the trees that grow along the sidewalk on my way to the station, and I know they do make fruit that look approximately like cherries but less glossy. What does one do with cherry plums? Jam??
Thanks Jeanne for your kind comment. I’ll try to dig out a picture of some cherry plum fruit - if not, come back for one in July when this year’s crop starts to ripen.
There’s a good picture of a basket of cherry plums - and a recipe for chutney - at http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/?p=70
[...] months after the cherry plum blossom first broke February’s wintry spell, the fruits are beginning to ripen. Trees in Suffolk are bearing good crops - despite frosts in [...]
Wild cherry plums are great if you can find them,,,As easily is to grow Asian plums in your garden. Sweet and juicy to eat straight off the tree. Purchase from Suttons seeds.