Wild Beach Plums have heavy fruit loads this year. The most I’ve seen. Hope to find some ripe ones next week if the birds don’t get them first. Some have fruit that is still all green while others are close to rip.
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Those look great! I pick when nearing ripeness to beat the birds and other competition, then lay them out in trays one plum deep for two or three days to ripen. I sort and selectively freeze over a few days until they’ve all ripened. I usually have a bunch of trays going at a time. Cardboard trays work great
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Does anyone eat BP right off the tree or is too tart?
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I always do when picking. Each variety tastes slightly different. I have a favorite, 2nd fav, etc. There’s a “sweet spot” ripeness-wise for each variety. Some get more “mealy” than others as they get soft.
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Good advice! I was waiting for the couple dozen fruits to finish ripening because I thought they were still rock hard. Then I noticed they were disappearing rapidly! Upon further investigation, the remaining fruits were not quite rock hard. I picket the remaining half dozen and we enjoyed them out of hand.
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BP usually bloom later than the other Natives I’ve read and observed for mine here in Zone 7. My Mexican, American, and Chickasaw all bloomed end of March while my BPs were 3rd week of April. By the time the BP blooms opened the others had petal drop.
Canadian Plum is supposed to be a good pollinator, might work well for you in NH (?).
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The only pollinator I’d rely on for beach plums is other beach plums. I have a bunch of different beach plum seedlings, so they should be pollinating each other. From other responses above, it’s not unusual for young trees to bloom profusely and not set a thing. So, I wait. If that doesn’t improve anything, I’ll graft in an unrelated variety in one or two trees.
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I’m hoping it is a maturity issue for me as well. I’ve had 2 different BPs blooming for 2 yrs now w/o fruit set. 
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Do they have thorns yet? I think that might be as good a “maturity” indicator as anything. Mine didn’t fruit in earnest until they had a good number of thorns/spurs.
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Are you talking about Beach Plums (Prunus maritima)? I never noticed thorns. Will have to look closer.
They’re like spurs more than thorns, but I think they’re called thorns in the literature. Theyre usually pretty long - like 2" or longer, and flower and fruit.
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I didn’t know the BP had thorns like the other natives do, none of my BP have any. My Mexican/American/Chickasaw all have thorns, and have had them for a few years now but they all flowered the first time this year. Only my Mexican Plum had fruit set, 4 and probably 100 aborted early. Guessing my trees are all still immature.
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Ok they do have some thin spurs but definitely not thorns.
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Sorry - was in NH the past week so didn’t have access to my plums or books.
I stand corrected; the literature refers to BPs as “more or less spiny,” not thorny.
As I said, they’re more like (pointy) spurs. Here’s a photo of some on a branch of my BSB #1 (my favorite out of hand). It’s just a graft from a robust flowery tree I found in DE. Some are more “spiny” than others, and it seems like at least some of the spines may grow into full-fledged branches, though I’m not sure.
Spines DO flower and fruit!
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@Petebacher I always appreciate your posts. In case you ever want to access The plums of New York electronically, it is available for free through Project Gutenberg: The Plums of New York | Project Gutenberg.
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