The very first Japanese plum harvested from my 150-n-1 tree! Nothing beats the flavor of tree ripened fruits. It isn’t the first fruits of the tree. Cherries came first then an early season Nectarine and then this plum.
This is Asian Beauty plum. It truly developed complex flavors after the heatwave. A little tart skin that gets sweeter and sweeter to the pit. This year it is juicier but sweeter than last year. Enjoy with me!
Next to ripen over the weekend and the next couple of weeks would be the 7 different types of red leafed plums and some green-leafed plums on my 150-n-1 tree. Some of these are already edible but not at their peak flavor yet. The Hollywood plum, Brooks Plum, Vesuvius, purple cherry plums, all can be eaten now as survival food but it isn’t the best time to enjoy them. They’re all ground level.
Joe, that is just plain amazing. I would go crazy sorting out with one is the best tasting. In my case i just eat till there ain’t nothing left. Btw, What is your best polinizer for that tree or does it matter.
I can’t tell which pollinated what as there are plenty of bloom overlaps and pollenizers. So much fruit sets but then are thinned out by heavy rains during blooms, hail, high winds.
The rootstock is purple ornamental cherry plum. You can’t graft a cherry on it directly. Use an interstem. Plum x cherry hybrids can be used as interstems and Adara plum.
Black Amber plum and strawberries for breakfast! The Black Amber Plum is a free stone but typical of Japanese plums that are juicy and sweet. Sweet juices drip down my fingers as I bite into its juicy flesh. Aroma is typical of plums and its skin is slightly tart. Also from my 150-n-1 tree. If you eat the strawberries after a bite on the plum, the delicious strawberries would taste like a wet cardboard in comparison. A long time ago, I really don’t like plums because they’re so bland, a little bit sour and astringent, which ironically, the first plum I ever bought from the store and have tasted is the Black Amber. But when I tasted tree ripened plum fruits from my sister’s yard more than 27 years ago, that changed everything! Tree ripened stone fruits are the best to enjoy, and you can’t taste them at their peak flavor unless you grow the tree yourself. I increased diversity and prolonged my harvest season by grafting 150 different kinds into one tree. The tree is still the same size as a normal tree, but then you’ll have manageable harvests every day for 7 months and it’s type of fruit you eat them at their peak flavor! And to be fair with the strawberries, they’ll also taste super if you grow them yourself. Store bought fruits, especially from big box stores are often harvested before they’re truly ripe. The next best place to get excellent tasting fruits would be from your friendly fruit-crazy neighbors like me or the farmer’s market.
Sierra plums are truly very sweet in the flesh up to the pit. The skin is sweet tart. Wonderful plum, a keeper for me. It holds on the tree well. I’ve been sampling it for the past two weeks and held its flavor and texture very well. The birds don’t know that it’s already ripe. Ha ha ha!
Sweet Treat Pluerry came out very good! It has only a hint of acidity and had some apricot aftertaste but nowhere is the cherry flavor to be found. But it is excellent tasting. It has a mild aroma reminiscent of Flavor King pluot. I really think it needs heatwaves and lots of sunshine which happened the week before and up to this moment of harvest. It’s an excellent cultivar for me if you can expose it to full sunshine from early morning till evening!
At long last, some of my Nadia Cherries have escaped the birds. After several heatwaves, they ripened a lot and now they’re sweet, and indeed they tasted like mild Bing Cherries only giant sized for a cherry. The plum flavor is very mild, texture is similar to cherry and it is in perfect balance of flavors of plum and cherries! It is free stone type!!! This cultivar is a keeper!
Catalina Plums. Firm, crunchy and sweet. It never becomes soft. Loved it! If left longer on the tree, the skin color turns black and still crunchy and firm!
Overripe Shiro Plums, super sweet and juicy. The bruises on the fruits were caused by strong winds. I grafted this last year and it’s their first fruits. I harvested some last month. It keeps well on the tree and it holds on until it shrivels like prunes and by then they would taste like jams. Shiro plums can be enjoyed as it change color from green to yellow green. At this stage it is tart with some sweetness and tasted like tomatoes except with plum aroma. You can slice it and use in salad. As days go by, the color turns into pale yellow, and at this time, it has perfect balance of sweetness and tartness and crispy. As it turns into bright yellow only the sweetness dominates and it becomes juicy until it turns dark yellow like in the pictures below and it wouldn’t be as juicy but jammy. At this time of overripeness, they make the best port style wines with very high alcohol content like that of the Sake. Our Shiro Wine won Best Of Show at the County Fair.
You have good taste buds and are good at describing taste. I have Shiro for many years. All I can say is when fully ripe, it is sweet and juicy. However, in my area, weather seems to affect fruit quality a great deal Some years, it tastes better than the others.
My very last Santa Rosa Fruit from the 150-n-1 tree. It has developed full color that bled into its orange underneath flesh. I am only maintaining a small branch of this for cross pollination as it is very common plum and it has many bloom time overlaps with other plums. One of Luther Burbank’s masterpieces and it was used as a parent of many other new plums and pluots. This is one of the most popular plums in California backyards. Plum aroma is fantastic. The flesh or juice is super sweet and very juicy and it gets wonderfully tarter towards the pit. The skin has only very mild bitterness. You can bite a small hole into the fruit and suck all its juices out until you’re left with a sour pit and bitter skin that you can conveniently discard.
I gave away my last heart. The Candy Heart Pluerry. Very delicious with Apricot aftertaste. It’s very productive and has ripened last month and it’s a good keeper on the tree. A neighbor came and wanted to taste it. So I gave away the last fruit and now I’ll never know how much longer it can keep on the tree!
