An Article about Growing Tree Fruit with a Focus on Plums and Damsons

PLUMS AND DAMSONS

PLUMS come into flower early and as with pears originated in warmer climates than ours. Our indigenous or native plums are the bullace, the sloe and possibly the damson. but the larger and tastier plums are descendants from prunus domesticus, the type which began in Asia Minor or South Europe. The greengage actually grows wild in the South Caucasus, a Garden of Eden from which many varieties and species of edible fruits have spread through Europe and the rest of the temperate world. Prunes are, of course, merely dried blue plums, and until America and Australia took up large-scale production the prune was a monopoly of the southern European states from Bosnia through to Spain and Portugal.

Soils for Plums.

Provided that they are planted under clean cultivation, have ample room to send out roots and are neither waterlogged in winter nor droughted in summer—and odd as it may seem these two extremes often go together—plums are happy in most soils. The ideal is a good, deep, holding loam with a moderate clay content and enough old mortar rubble to sweeten the whole and add the necessary lime.

Plums are heavy feeders, and like all stone fruits, need the addition of a certain amount of lime on soils known to be definitely deficient if heavy and regular cropping is to be expected; unless this is the case lime need not be added.

¹ The prescription for Bordeaux wash is 10 ounces of copper sulphate dissolved in nine gallons of water. Then sift into another vessel holding a gallon of water fifteen ounces of hydrated lime, stirring thoroughly. Finally add the lime water to the nine gallons of copper sulphate solution and stir again. If you have a wooden container so