I picked a 5 gal bucket of wild plum I spotted along the side of the road. I’m planning on making jelly and/or some wine just to try it. I really want to grow some rootstock though. Any trick to growing the seed? Just stratify them? Do they need to be kept moist, or cam the pits dry out?
Also, if anyone has any suggestions on what to do with them I’d love to hear. I like them fresh (minus the skin), but I can only eat so many.
I had good luck just adding a dense layer of wild plum pits to a pot with standard potting soil, and then adding another inch of soil on top. Then covered with hardware cloth and left the pot outside all winter. They popped up in early summer.
My favorite way to prepare them is to mash them through a sieve and dry the pulp into fruit leather. This year I’m also attempting to make vinegar from the skins by fermenting them in sugar water.
Has anyone noticed a significant difference in fruit size on wild varieties? These were right next to each other.
Hi Travis,
My wild ones fruit in varying sizes as well. It seems to be a Normal trait.
If you could save me a dozen or so seeds I would be happy to either pay postage of exchange wild seeds with you. Those you have are very different from mine, but very reminiscent of my childhood thickets in Tn, so I would really love to obtain your seeds and maybe even some scions this winter. I can send you a list of plum varieties I have for scion cutting if you wish to trade. Let me know
Dennis
Kent, wa
So Nate,
In your climate I assume the potted seed if left above ground would go thru several freeze thaw cycles. It’s interesting because most stratifying processes require refrigeration instead of freezing temps. Your process seems to replicate what happens in nature. Maybe I will try you process this winter. So am I right in assuming you do not dig the pot into the soil.
Dennis
Kent, wa
Hi Dennis,
Thanks for the questions — having lived in the upper midwest all my life I didn’t consider that “leave a pot outside all winter” can mean very different conditions in other parts of the country.
I didn’t bury the pot, but it sounds like a good idea — I don’t know what temperature is low enough to kill the seeds. The pot did get buried under the snow for most of the winter which provides some insulation.
I’m not sure about multiple freeze-thaw cycles. That’s definitely happening with the air temperature as we get into April/May, but I’m not sure about at ground level (the ground freezes solid here from December into May). Sunny spots probably experience thawing and refreezing at night. I had this pot in a shaded spot.
So from your description, it appears that once snow covers the pot it’s insulated most of the time that the ground is frozen, so it may not be actually freezing where the pot is covered by a snow bank. But the seeds would be kept moist and probably mimics what they would experience in nature. Here we usually get snow but it does not stay long and melts off within a week. So I will try same process with the seed pots buried in the ground and insulated with a pile of leaves until spring temps are well above freezing at night. Thanks for sharing your process. I will definitely try it
Dennis
I’m pretty sure the potting medium was frozen solid even though it was covered by snow. The ground here is also covered by snow for most of the winter and it still freezes to a depth of 4 ft or more. I don’t know if that level of cold is necessary for the seeds to germinate, but it doesn’t seem to hurt.
I also planted peach and pawpaw seeds in-ground here and had great germination rates. The peach seedlings popped up in early June but the pawpaws didn’t start appearing until late August.
Here’s a really nice blog post from Akiva Silver about growing American plums: Growing American Plums — Twisted Tree Farm. He talks about stratification in a refrigerator or in a buried bucket (FWIW I think he’s in zone 5 New York).
I’ve followed this recipe Quick & Easy Plum Wine - And Here We Are
I made a few changes, add a stabilizer before bottling it can go bad. Also for a semi sweet wine add 1.5 cups of honey per gallon before bottling. Make sure your yeast are dead. Im not a big wine fan but enjoyed this stuff. Going to make again this year plums are in the freezer now.
@nandrsn do you put the peaches and plum seeds in the ground right after eating them or do something else first? This sounds much easier than what i have going on in the fridge right now… also do you split all the seeds out or just leave in the pit? I think i read some people doing it your way with peaches but didnt think it would work where im at (northern IA). Right now i have a bunch in zip locks and in 4 months i guess they will start growing so ill have to start them indoors which sounds like more effort than what you do.
Yeah I’d be more than happy to share some with you, I have plenty.
For peaches, I mostly planted the whole pits straight in the ground after eating. Just used my finger to make holes a couple inches deep. I scattered them around in my mulched garden beds. The fruit came from my neighbor’s tree so I think they should be well-adapted to the weather here.
I had some losses to squirrels and chipmunks, including in the spring after the shoots appeared. I would recommend protecting with hardware cloth cages.
Same basic idea with the pawpaws but rodents seem less interested in them.
Here’s one of the peach seedlings I planted from seed last summer — already about 3 feet tall. I put the cage on soon after it popped up, since I had already lost a couple a few days earlier to squirrels digging them up. I’m going to have to move this one because I planted a grafted apple tree about a foot away a few weeks before this popped up. Probably should’ve marked the locations where I planted seeds, but I was trying to figure out just how little effort I could get away with.
Ok I will save and label seeds from my wild plums for you, my neighbor also has a yellow plum tree that is probably not wild but produces an abundance of very large super sweet but tart plums. So juicy and great when fully ripened. I can include some of those seeds as well. I am eager to try your method of planting them
Dennis
Kent, wa
Cant you get a jumpstart and grow them from cuttings?
“Cuttings are the best way to get a tree that is the same as the parent tree. Not all trees are successfully propagated from cuttings, but plums are. Cuttings can be taken now, winter is the best time to take hardwood cuttings.”
It is worth trying, I am able to root my two varieties I use for interstems. So you are probably right that it could give a more viable plant using cuttings.
Dennis
Hi Travis,
So I am saving seeds to trade with you, perhaps Chris has a good idea. I have had good success rooting several plum varieties as well as grafting. Would you be interested in trading scions as well of your native ones? I would like to try all three methods of growing them.
Below is this years collection of one of my volunteer plums. I believe it’s some variety of green gage. Note the variation in size of fruit as in yours. Not a pretty variety, but it’s sweet taste is very nice, one of my best!
Dennis
I would like some cuttings…to (try) to root.
I can probably provide a few this winter, just remind me in Feb. Do you have any wild plums or interesting varieties to trade
Dennis
