Nice crop set of these this year. Maybe not as much as Methley but still several 10s of lbs.
Shiro is a beautiful golden plum. Sweet with tart skin. Rather simple flavor rather than the wine like complexity of Methley. I know some people love this plum.
It makes an amazing jam.
ofMe my wife and my mom really like this plum. May not be complex flavor but as far as I’m concerned it gets the season going. Not sure when my other Asians will ripen but for a first crop of year it’s good
Those look great! My Shiros are getting close but I’m not sure when to pick them . Does anybody have first hand experience with Shiro’s ripening date in comparison to Redhaven peach?
So beautiful Ram . Do you also have Methley plum ? How is Methley flavor to you ?
Hi Vincent.
I had posted about Methley here.
A fully ripe Methley has a brix value >20 and a complex wine like flavor. It might be the favorite fruit that I grow.
But I just grafted 10 more supposedly fantastic plum/pluot varieties this year. Hopefully those will fill out the season and will be better than Beauty or Shiro.
It might be best to sample them as they progress.They get sweeter and then further along,turn into bags of juice.bb
Agree with Brady. I pick maybe a couple each day. I’m trying to let them get completely ripe!
They are best when the color is bright yellow and the bloom is just gone. After that the texture and the taste change, sweeter but not better. Mine finished about a week ago.
Darker color fruits in picture, what are they?
They are Catalina plum. This tree set too much fruits this year so they are small. Before they turned purple, they looked almost like Shiro, which was so weird. We actually have them planted together in a small rectangle. I can take picture of the normal Catalina tomorrow. They are much bigger but still unripe, and they have only about a dozen on each tree.
Do you like the taste of Catalina more than Shiro Plum?
They are quite different. My husband likes Catalina better because the taste is consistent. Some years Shiro had no taste, or you have to get it at the right time for it to taste good. Last year we waited for them to get really ripe and they turned out inedible, soggy and weird.
I will find room for my Catalina Plum. No information how it performs up here in Pacific Northwest yet. I wonder how its growing habit shape? Upright or spread out ? It is so lucky you had Catalina Plum among fruit growers here . Thanks again for all information.
Mine is 1st year tree and Shiro had baby plums. Tiny but edible. I have three left to pick
Shiro plums are good when picked at the perfect condition, which is hard if you have a big tree and the fruits are small.
The first picture is Catalina tree, about 10 ft tall
The second picture Catalina fruit, still unripe
The third picture is Emerald Beaut Plum in the container. The support pipe is 3/4 " PVC.
All your trees look great. Thank you so much.
I have also noticed this lack of consistency of Shiro in my mid-atlantic climate. This year they were awesome, the birds usually ignore them because they go after the red plums preferably but they knew they were good this year and pecked them up real good. When they were fully ripe they were really great, a bit of a burnt sugar kind of flavor on top of great plum. Last year they were horrible; I didn’t even bother to pick them.
Do you like the taste of your Emerald Beaut plum? How are they and when they’re really ready to harvest in your area?
This year my Emerald Beaut first time have a few fruits after 3 years of growing. In Seattle far up north but seem not much behind your tree. I tasted my Emerald Beaut under ripe today . They are more like round shape, very good, sweet , very juicy, seem like clingstone . It’s surprised me because of not much crunchy or crisp like the ones I bought from Sams clubs before . I wonder Emerald Beaut plum, Emerald Beaut plumcots and Emerald Beaut pluots… whether or not are they the same cultivar ? How is your idea Steve @fruitnut about the question? Below my Emerald Beaut plum tasting today pictures.
For the Emerald Beaut, the few we tasted a week ago were big, bland, watery and sad; maybe too much rain and not enough sun light. After a very hot week, the unripe ones taste much better today, firm and getting closer but not quite as good as last year yet. The tags say EB plum from Dave Wilson Nursery. Last year they were firm and sweet, but I don’t remember if they were really crunchy or freestone. There are a lot more and we will see how they turn out this year.
The birds know better than we do. Last year, one day I noticed they suddenly deserted the apple tree from the neighbor and went after my jujube. Turned out the jujube tasted very good and I had to put the tulle on. They got back to the apples after that.
