Plums, plums and more plums

 

On June 30 I stripped the Satsuma plum tree.  This was what I picked on this day....all of these.  I need more friends

When designing  my orchard  I wanted to add a Satsuma plum tree.  They are so sweet with beautiful dark purple meat,  I really only needed one tree but the Satsuma is not self pollinating and like almost all plum varieties needs a Santa Rosa plum for the bees to work with.  The Santa Rosa plum is a gorgeous dark purple on the outside with yellow meat on the inside and usually not as sweet.   Usually.

Santa Rosa plums

Harvesting time  lags about 2 weeks starting with the Satsuma.  So for six weeks solid I had ripe plums.

I made some stone fruit jam from The Yummy Life blog.  It's a recipe that uses 3 ingredients: stone fruit, sugar and lemon juice - no pectin so pretty easy.

 

Stone fruit jam

Now what to do with the rest of the 400-500 plums?  On about July 1 I pulled out my food dehydrator and put it to use.  Each morning I would pit and slice enough plums to arrange on 6 trays.  I started each morning at about 10 am so I would have all day to keep watch on the progress. Oh yes I set it up in the "office" kitchen ( which is just a part of the garage that has an air conditioning unit in the window and access to electricity.  My "office " kitchen also houses my freezer and overflow pantry items along with the small appliances that don't have a home inside. 

Satsuma on left, Santa Roses on right

The fruit took all day with a turn and right before bed I would remove the dried fruit and get it ready for the overnight fruit= tomatoes.  The room smelled absolutely divine all day long whenever I would wander past or in the office.  Almost without exception this was my routine every day of July.

I also froze several pounds but I am excited that I have such a reserve for the winter and plenty to share with my friends and family.  I use a Food Saver for vacuum storage. 

OK  moving on to my intermediate crop: tomatoes