"A Plum of a Year!"
By Esther Smith
As many fruit growers will confirm, this really has been the “Year of the Plum!” Here at Caring For Life, the wild plum trees in our woodland areas have been absolutely laden with fruits, ranging in colour from yellow to red, purple, green and almost black. Some trees are still bearing fruit, but as soon as the weather turns chilly, the remaining fruit is likely to be gobbled up by thrushes, blackbirds and redwings. The plums are very sweet and their taste does vary with the different varieties.
One major problem has been trying to confirm just what sort of wild plums we have here on site.. bullaces, or cherry plums?
Whatever their official name may be, the wild plums have made delicious jam, setting extremely quickly and looking beautiful on the jam shelves, with their varyied colours.
Now the crop of sloes is well on the way. This fruit of the blackthorn bush make a really delicious jelly, tasting of the wild hedgerow and coloured dark red, almost purple.
Our damson tree fruited well, producing around 25 jars of jam, so we have been very encouraged by our own plum harvest. Some supporters have also brought the spare produce from their Victoria plum trees, enabling us to produce another type of much-loved jam.
A few weeks ago, we were amazed by the generosity of a supporter who travelled a long distance to bring us a vanful of plums in trays, all ready for jam-making. He was keen to give the plums to CFL, to enable us to turn them into jam and thus support CFL’s ministry, literally supporting the Lord’s work through his harvest of plums.
These were no ordinary plums, Czar plums and Early Prolific plums. Both have made beautiful jam and due to the huge quantity of fruit, some have had to be frozen until we have another jamming session! A small amount have been added to our own onions and apples to make Orchard Chutney and some have been cooked with cloves and other spices, to make a popular preserve, Spiced Plum Jam.
All are selling well in the Granary farm shop here at CFL and we were thrilled by the sales of preserves at our recent Supporters Day.
We praise God for every sign of His goodness as we enjoy this wonderful time of year, when the harvest is gathered in. We also thank our very kind supporters for helping CFL in so many different ways, including the turning of a harvest of plums into a means of sharing the love of Jesus with very needy people.
