Fruit Trees Spring 2013

Well, it has been a weird spring as far as the weather.  We had frosty cold nights (down to -5°F) a few times and a week of +30°F weather.  The last week, we had lots of rain - enough to half-fill the small wheelbarrow.

I went out to check on how the fruit is coming and found both good and bad news.

Next to no peaches.  Last year we had so many that I had to thin them out.  The late frost happened when the trees were blooming so no peaches.  :(

 

The apricot tree in the back is loaded - even with Barry's severe pruning this year.  He cut the tree back quite a bit to shorten it so we don't have to climb so high on the ladder to pick the fruit.

 

We are going to have lots of plums.  They seem to be very hardy as we have had an abundance of plums each year.

 

Look at the poor cherries!  :(  They are so scarce, we didn't even bag the trees against the cherry fruit fly this year.  it was too much work for so few cherries.  The frost hit the cherry blossoms as well as the peaches this year.  :(

 

It looks like the apple crop will be good.  I will be soon thinning out the apples so the fruit gets bigger.  I'd rather have fewer but larger fruit than lots of small apples.

 

The pears are plentiful and will need thinning as well.

 

Here is the second apricot tree which is loaded like the other tree.  It'll be the year for apricot juice and jam.

 



Spiced Plum Chutney

I was looking into making some spicy plum chutney for a friend.  I found these three recipes that looked interesting so I took what I liked and made up a recipe of my own.

http://localfoods.about.com/od/summer/r/PlumChutney.htm
http://www.food.com/recipe/plum-chutney-40244
http://www.food.com/recipe/spiced-plum-chutney-193167

I decided to use both my Italian plums and prune plums.

Italian plums are larger and have a more yellow coloured flesh than the prune plums.

 





Prune plums can be eaten quite green (my dad likes them this way) or you can wait until they are softer and the flesh is a little yellower.  They are usually the last plums ready but this year, one of the trees was ripe early so I used them in the chutney.

Ingredients

10 c plums - cut into pieces (I used prune plums and Italian plums)
4 apples - cored, peeled and chopped - (about 2 c)
1 onion, chopped
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1 c golden raisins
2 c sugar
1 1/2 c vinegar
2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp mustard seed
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes


Wash and pit plums.

 

Cut into pieces.  I ended up using 5 cups of Italian Plums.

 

 

Do the same with the prune plums. 

 

I again used 5 cups of cut-up prune plums. 

 

Peel, core and chop apples.  Chop onion and mince garlic.  Add raisins and rest of ingredients.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat.  Stir often and let mixture cook and thicken.  It takes around an hour for this to happen.

 

Fill sterilized jars and process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.  This recipe made 5 pints and 1 half pint.  You should allow chutney to sit for 4 to 6 weeks before eating it so the flavours can meld. 

 

 

 



Peach and Yellow Plum Chutney

We have an over-abundance of peaches this year.  We have 5 1/2 peach trees (one tree is almost dead) and we have peaches coming out the ying-yang.  The first year we were here, we got a grand total of 7 peaches.  Yes 7 peaches from 6 trees!  It got cool that spring when the peach trees were blooming and the flowers didn't set.

This spring we had lots of fruit so I started thinning the peach and apple trees.  You are to thin so the fruit doesn't touch when it is full grown.  I thinned out a lot of fruit but didn't get all the trees finished.  The tree below got missed.  There were tons of fruit and they were quite a bit smaller than on the trees I thinned.

 

 This tree was thinned - you can see most fruit are not touching each other.

 



 

 

 This is a later tree because although the peaches are quite red, they still are very hard.

 



We also have 2 yellow plum trees and the plums are just clumped together.  I was told that you don't have to thin plums as they self-thin and drop excess fruit.  WRONG!  Look at these plums.

 

 

  

 

Anyway, back to the chutney.  A friend asked me to make some chutney for her and upon doing some research, I found so many interesting recipes to choose from.  I got this one from my cookbook 250 Home Preserving Favorites by Yvonne Tremblay.  It looked tasty plus it used peaches and yellow plums.

 

 

Ingredients

 

4 c plums - chopped

3 c peaches - peeled and chopped

2 1/2 c sugar (the recipe asked for brown sugar but I read that the chutney would be a darker colour with it.  I decided to go with white sugar to help keep the lovely colours of the fruit)

1 c  diced yellow or red pepper (I used red for a contrasting colour)

1 c chopped onion

1 large clove garlic, minced

1 green or red hot chili pepper, minced or 1 tsp hot pepper flakes (I used red pepper flakes)

2/3 c vinegar

2 Tbsp grated ginger root

1 Tbsp grated lemon rind

2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp mustard seed

1/2 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp turmeric

 

 

 Peel and chop peaches. 

 

 

 

Chop and pit plums.  Leave the peel on as it breaks down in cooking.  It also adds pectin to aid with the thickening of the chutney.

 

Mince garlic, chop onion and dice pepper.  Add to fruit in a large heavy-bottomed pot. 

 

 Grate lemon ring and ginger root.  Add to rest.

 

Add sugar, spices and vinegar to rest of ingredients.  Isn't it a lovely colour?  Stir often while bringing to a boil.  Reduce heat to a gentle boil.  Stir often while mixture cooks and thickens.  (about 45 - 60 minutes)  Ladle into sterilized jars and process for 10 minutes in a hot water bath.



 

 

The recipe is for 5 half-pints but I got 3 pints and 2 half-pints. (I used a bit more fruit and didn't measure the pepper or onion)  You are to store for at least a month so the flavours can meld.  It turned out to be a lovely colour and had a yummy aroma while cooking.  Enjoy!  ;) 

 

 



 





Apricot and Yellow Plum Jam

I saw a recipe for Apricot and Yellow Plum Jam in my cookbook, "250 Home Preserving Favorites" by Yvonne Tremblay that sounded interesting.

I took the basic idea and made changes because she used commercial pectin and lots of sugar.  I find most recipes with pectin have more sugar than I would like.  I don't like to make jam where you use more sugar than fruit.  It also used Apricot Brandy which I left out.

Ingredients
8 c apricots
8 c yellow plums
1 qt homemade pectin
1/2 c lemon juice
8 c sugar


Wash, half and pit apricots.  I used some greener apricots as I read fruit has more pectin then and you should use some under-ripe fruit when making jam.

I used the yellow plums on the greener side so had to cut them off the pit. Last year when they were very ripe in the Three Plum Jam http://mountaingardengleanings.blogspot.ca/2011/09/three-plum-jam.html, they seemed to be too juicy and took too long to boil down to jam.

I boiled the fruit together with the pectin and lemon juice until it was soft.

Then I added the sugar and boiled until it was jam.  Last year I used the cold saucer trick but this year I'm trying the thermometer.  You are to boil the jam until it reaches 220°F or 100°C.  Skim off foam and pour into sterilized jars.  Process for 10 minutes in hot-water bath.

The jam was very fragrant when cooking and was tasty when tested.  It is runnier than the Spiced Apricot Jam but that used apricot pulp so had less juice to boil down.  The recipe made 9 pints.

Three Plum Jam

We have a number of varieties of plums growing in our yard.  We have the purple Italian or prune plums that I make into prunes later in the fall.  We also have three earlier varieties that I decided to mix and make into a Three Plum Jam. 

The three plums I used are a round red variety similar to Santa Rosa plums,  a round yellow plum that is very juicy and has a very short season and larger oval plum that turns a dark purple over time. We don't know the names of the fruit we have here, we just guess at them.

I didn't use a recipe as such, I just checked out a number of recipes on the internet and found the proportions for ingredients were similar in most.



Ingredients 

12 c plums total (I used 4 cups of each kind)

½ c lemon juice

6 c sugar

2 c homemade pectin

Wash and sort plums of your choice. 

Pit plums and cut into pieces if plums are firm.  For the larger purplish red plums, I cut them into eighths.

As mentioned before, the yellow plums are very juicy.  You more or less try to remove the pit and cut the skin into pieces without making a big mess.  I often poke a hole with the knife and squeeze out the pits catching the juice and pulp in a bowl and then cut/rip the skin into pieces.  If you eat one of these plums, you almost need to put the whole plum into your mouth before you bite it or else you will be covered in juice from your chin to your waist.  They are not a plum to eat in public - you either look like a messy slob with juice dripping off your chin or a pig with a whole plum stuffed into your mouth.

The red plums were juicy as well so they were pitted and their skins chopped into smaller pieces just like the yellow ones.

Mix all ingredients in a large heavy pot and bring to a boil.  Stir frequently for about 30 minutes or so.  I actually had to cook them for almost an hour.  The length of cooking time depends on how juicy your plums are.  If I had used only the larger purplish/red plums, my cook time would have been shorter.

Skim off the foam and cook until it passed the jam test.  (the saucer in the freezer mentioned in previous posts).

Pour into sterilized jars and process for 10 minutes in a hot water bath. 

The recipe made 9 pints of lovely red jam.  Isn't it a pretty colour!  ;)

Cherry and Plum Trees in Bloom

  

Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now...

by AE Housman (1859 - 1936)

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my three score years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom,

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go,

To see the cherry hung with snow.

All photos taken in BC, Canada.