Wednesday 16 December 2009

plum lucky; plum grateful

plumsplumsLast night we headed off down a back laneway near our house to a plum tree loaded up with fruit that the owner seemed not to want. Branches were hanging over into the laneway and in Australia it's legal for the public to take that fruit. As I was picking the plums I could hear the wings of fruit bats near my arms. We were in competition for these luscious red morsels! I plan to make jam on the weekend with that big bowl in the first pic. There is nothing quite like a liquidy plum jam drissled over dessert 7 months from now in the dead of winter. Behind the plum tree was an apricot tree also loaded with ripe fruit. It was well in the man's yard so sadly we could not pick any. We're considering knocking on his door and asking if we can fill up a few bags and pay him for them. I just hate seeing fruit rotting on the ground.This one little plum is the first and only fruit produced by our young plum tree this year. We planted it 18 months ago so were surprised to see she had produced already. Just one but delicious! I can't wait to see how many she gives us next year. It's plum crazy around here at this time of year. So many fruit trees to choose from! Figs galore in another 6 weeks or so, plums, apricots, lemons, limes, the list goes on. All because 50-60 years ago when immigrants from the Mediterranean arrived in Melbourne they planted fruit trees all over the inner city suburbs where they lived. Am I grateful or what?

8 comments:

  1. When I was little plums meant Christmas but we were always away when they ripened and the neighbourhood kids ate them!
    Happy Holidays :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. what a beautiful plum your tree has produced!
    i remember plucking plums from a tree in australia myself. the kind owner asked us to and the fruit was delicious.

    ReplyDelete
  3. so interesting! my japanese friend who lives in melbourne has just posted about plums coming from her neighbour's tree, it makes me wonder if your plums came from the same tree???? but i suppose there are many plum trees around?? seeing two posts about the same thing on a same day was really something!

    ReplyDelete
  4. can i come and live at your place?

    ReplyDelete
  5. There was an article in our weekly metro food section of the paper that talked about scavanging food from urban areas. I checked the links with the article and none of them worked.
    We had a plum tree down the road, an open road with no houses, when we lived in the country, and come summer we'd wander down to pick the fruit and make jam. Yum. The colour of that jam was magic.

    ReplyDelete
  6. You should definitely knock on the door and ask about the apricots! Especially if your neighbour is elderly, as he may not be physically able to pick the fruit himself and will be very glad of someone helping out. It could be the start of a beautiful (and very productive) friendship. Go on - do it. After all, the worst that can happen is that he says "No"...

    ReplyDelete