Pleasing Plums

After my plum tree collapsed under its own weight and I pruned it in haste, I wasn’t sure if the rest of the plum crop would last.  But it did just fine, and by mid-June they were ripe. 

 Despite losing about half of them in the pruning, there were enough for the critters (squirrels, crows, etc.) to share with me.  I was snacking on plums every day. 

 

I gave plums to friends and brought some to work.  Still plums on the tree.  The last weekend of June I was heading out of town, so I grabbed a bucket and my stepladder 

and picked the rest off the tree.

A little under a gallon - not a bad haul.  There probably would have been two gallons, but I had to toss all the plums that had been pecked-at, and some that were overripe.

 It took me an hour or two to “process” the plums for freezing.  Wash, slice in half, and remove the pit.  (This is where I learned that like peaches, there are freestone and clingstone plums.  My sugar plums, unfortunately, are the clingy type.)  Put the plums in freezer bags and fill the bags (enough to cover the plums) with white grape juice (apple juice works, too.).  I filled three quart bags.

While I was away, we had a big storm (a derecho), and my house was without power for a while.  The thing that concerned me the most?  That I might lose all those plums in the freezer.  Fortunately the power was restored in a little under two days.  I came home to find that a bag of ice I had in the freezer was still ice-cube-shaped, so things in my newish (and apparently well-insulated) freezer must have stayed pretty cold.  The plums were safe!  

I visited my parents recently and brought along a bag of plums.  One night for dessert I made Zwetschgenkuchen (plum cake)

Yummy.