There are, as we all know, many disadvantages to going away on holiday, not least the fact — so ably nailed by Alain de Botton — that we are forced to take ourselves with us. How relaxing it would be to leave home without one’s own deficiencies and inability to enjoy oneself when doing nothing. By the same token, some absolute essentials for happiness have to be left at home: in my case, my dessert plum trees.
This year, in mid-August, we went away for just one week. The ‘Denniston’s Superb’ greengages were just ripening when we left, so I picked as many as I could to put in the fridge. I topped up the sugar solution in the wasp traps hanging from the branches. A week later, we returned to find that almost all had been substantially damaged by wasps (the traps having dried up in the meantime), while the rest had fallen to the ground. Those picked for the fridge were beyond all human expression delicious, but there were not nearly enough of them to satisfy our craving for this sweet, juicy-fleshed, round, greenish-yellow dessert plum.
The plum (Prunus domestica) is a hybrid developed from at least two wild Prunus species; it arose many centuries ago, probably in the Caucasus, and was then carried westwards by merchants and other travellers. Plum stones have been found at Roman archaeological sites in this country. These days, there are upwards of 100 varieties. Plums have skins varying in colour from yellow and pink to deep purple; they can be dessert, i.e., capable of being eaten off the tree, culinary or ‘dual-purpose’. Greengages, which are botanically closely related, but distinctive in appearance, are green or yellow, smaller and more rounded than other plums. The greengage is named after Sir Thomas Gage, an amateur botanist and entomologist of Hengrave Hall, Suffolk, whose brother, a Roman Catholic priest, sent trees back from France, where it has always been known as ‘Reine-Claude’, early in the 18th century. The gardener lost the label so it came to be known, and disseminated, as ‘Green Gage’.
Plums, of whatever kind, will never be as popular with gardeners as apples and pears for reasons which are not far to seek, but mildly dispiriting, nevertheless. Wasps, bacterial canker, the fungal disease ‘silver leaf’, the shortness of their season, the necessity of thinning the young fruits, and their vulnerability to frost, since they flower in March, all tell against them in the public mind. But where crop size is not very important, as is the case for most gardeners, and where simple precautions (such as pruning only on a dry day in spring or summer) are perfectly possible, it seems almost perverse to ignore them. They can also be trained in a fan shape on south- or west-facing walls, which saves space and makes frost damage much less likely.
The only immutable rule with plums is to remember to thin them in June, to 2 inches (5 cms) apart, so that the remaining fruits develop maximum flavour, the branches do not break under the weight of fruit in a good year, and they do not resort to biennial bearing, that is, only producing fruit every two years. Garden owners look at me as if I and my trolley have finally parted company when I mention thinning, as if it were something that only glassy-eyed fanatics would bother with. But what is more pleasant on an early June afternoon than picking off small, immature plum fruits in the sunshine? It beats weeding any day.
If, by chance, you are thinking of planting a fruit tree, or two, in your garden this autumn, spare a thought for dessert plums. Then spare another for the best and most suitable varieties: ignore the dual-purpose ‘Victoria’, however reliable, since you can buy it in any supermarket and its taste is only so-so; plump instead for ones which are harder to find but much sweeter, such as ‘Jubilaeum’ or ‘Avalon’. The blue-skinned ‘Opal’ ripens in late July, while you could still be picking the delectable, dark-fleshed, pruney ‘Angelina Burdett’ in early September. As for greengages, I suggest ‘Early Transparent Gage’, ‘Denniston’s Superb’ or ‘Cambridge Gage’. And, if you need a respectable excuse for avoiding an August or early September holiday, then the harvesting of dessert plums will provide you with one. After this year’s domestic débâcle, I have high hopes of being allowed, even encouraged, to stay at home next summer.
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