I haven’t knowingly tasted a Gage type Plum.From what I’ve read,they are very sweet,but is there anything else,that separates them from other Plums,that gives them the “Gage flavor”?
Maybe I’ll find that out sometime soon.Some were grafted on a tree last year.Brady
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Brady,
I’ve never got much off my green gage plum but the flavor is wonderful. It’s a flavor unique to European plums that is indescribable. In my opinion Japanese plums are good but once you have a gage the Japanese plums are second rate.
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I’d say a caramel/honey type flavor.
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Hi I can only speak from eating my Euro gages. They are smaller, and all around sweet. When they are perfectly ripe the interior is almost transparent. They taste like fresh candied fruit (not quite as much sugar, but very sweet). It is my thought of a ‘sugarplum’. There is zero tartness to mine, unlike the skin a japanese plums.
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I bought 1 green gage plum from Wigh’t last year. It was not indicate what type of gage. After the winter, in Spring it set about 22 fruits. For the first year I tried them, taste very good, Bix 21+, but I was a little disappointed about fruit size too small, my plum skin and close the pit still tart, the flesh was juicy soft. I did not like to stop eating. one after one.
My neighbor gave me some yellow plum, He said gage plum. It tasted wonderful to me, I like them a lot even more than flavor greenade pluot from market , very crisp, so sweet inside out, now he sold his house but he gave me a little tree from his plum tree to planted. Last year I ordered Golden Transparent and Bavay from Raintree hopefully have some fruit this summer. The bad thing I heard about gage plum is if it rain a few time close to harvest time all fruit will crack because of high sugar. The picture below
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I think you should have Golden transparent gage plum from Raintree. Its leaf looks so beautiful. Last year I got the good size tree from them, but Bavay just a whip. Brady
How do gages fruit? On new wood, spurs? Can you espalier?
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Vincent, I know it is hard to do, you should thin a lot of them off.
I just thinned more this morning when I bagged. My E plums set tons of fruit. It is my first year having them. So,it is harder than usual for me to thin them off.
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Let’s see how it does , All the branches too tall with heavy fruits weigh down badly. I will trim down 2/3 the height as long as after this summer. It’s might not fruiting next year. I like to see how big the fruit without thin out. Mamuang
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OK, but they will not be as sweet as they could be. The tree can only produce so much sugar via the leaves. Do you want it in 10 fruits or 5? So not thinning produces a low sugar fruit besides being small. Most of us want as high a brix as possible. We have to thin for sure to achieve that.
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Last year was the first time fruiting brix over 21 but too small. It’s really weird with oval fruit most green gage is round sharp.
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Like @Drew51 mentioned, a smaller size of fruit is not that big of an issue, the taste is. You may not get very tasty fruit without thinning more than half off.
If they were peaches, those branches could break with that many fruit.
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Our Green Gage plum fruits are very good size. It’s big improvement comparing with the first year. We liked them a lot and very easy to have fruit in Pacific Northwest Seattle areas.
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So… I finally had my first taste of fresh gage plum today… kinda by accident.
I came across these at Catoctin Mountain Orchard in Thurmont:
These are called “Rosy Gage” also known as “New York Plum # 101.”
At CMO, the label just said “NY101,” so at first, I didn’t really know what I was buying. They could pass for an Asian plum, or a Euro plum, or a Damson, etc etc. They have deceptively Asian-like plum size and shape, but do have a little bit of the tell-tale prune style suture buldge.
To be honest, I was a little disappointed in this plum. It’s just not my kind of plum. It is perfectly edible-- rather sweet with an old timey JELLY candy-like interior texture. Barely juicy at all. It lacks the added depth of sourness in flavor that Asian plum skins afford. I prefer JUICE-BOMB melting flesh-style Asian plums, like Methley, Santa Rosa, etc. I also like the Asian-American hybrid Superior as one of my favorites. This year, I also liked the local Shiros, which in other years, were more dicey in their quality.
I wonder if all gage plums taste like these Rosy Gage…
Here’s more info on Rosy Gage, if you’re interested: Apparently, it cross-pollinizes with Oullins Gage…
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They don’t. They differ as much in taste as other plum varieties can. I only tasted Green Gage and Graf Althans Gage and like both. In fact I am eating 2 kg of Green Gages right now. They are thin skinned, very juicy, sweet with enough sourness to not be tasting boring. From your description of your taste I bet you would like them. I bought them from the market wednesday. It are imported fruit from France since this years harvest here was destroyed almost completely by late frosts.
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