Plums - an admission

I was reading the Kitchen Witch's post on Plums and I feel I have an admission to make ... especially after reading all the comments ...

We have a plum tree that is/was heavily laden with fruit (it's too dark outside for me to see) but I'm afraid that this year the birds and the - well, wildlife will feast on them. We have no time as our loft will shortly be converted, sorry.

When we first moved to our house our plum tree only gave us a handful of plums (if that) each year. It was very sad and my mother-in-law told me that it had some sort of disease, should just be cut down as it would never bear much fruit. This was, I should add, after I suggested that all it needed was a tender prune (my answer to all gardening problems I'm afraid).

Well, it was a challenge - my mother-in-law said ‘never’ and I though it just might. Why do I descend to such competitiveness? I duly looked up how to prune plum trees waited patiently for the right time and … pruned.

Next season it had so many plums the branches bowed under the weight. One of the branches actually broke! When next my mother-in-law visited we took her round our woeful garden (I’m afraid it is – well a bit, ‘woeful’ might be a touch of an exaggeration) her eyes set upon our tree with all its wares and she told us that … you know I can’t remember, I just felt very smug and that’s all that counts.

Ever since then the tree has bore us large quantities of fruit. I do not know if it is the initial pruning or perhaps the ‘threat’ of future prunes that causes our plum tree to be so generous. However, the plums do not always fair well and have gone mouldy or delivered us prunes instead.

But we have little time now for plums (or prunes) as our own fruit seem to drain so much of our time turning us into said prunes instead. Today we cleared their bedrooms (three males I should add) and it is a wonder the garden hasn’t grasped at the opportunity of extending there too. But it is cleared (pruned) and my wife and I feel satisfied even if we had to resort to an Indian takeaway for dinner. But the plums will remain in the garden for the wildlife this season …