Kitchen Garden Forum

Hello,

We have 2 plum trees in the back garden and this year's crop was really bad. One tree didn't produce any fruit at all and another only produced a tiny amount. Compare this to other years when we have grown enough plums for ourselves and our friends and family!

I was wondering if anyone else had had a bad year for plums too? Or was it just my trees?

Cathy

Hello Cathy. A friend on our site lets us have the plums from his tree on his plot and we have been watching and waiting for them in eager anticipation. Sadly, there weren't many plums and the ones which did make it were awful...all brown inside as if they were over ripe. I noticed that plum trees on other plots didn't have a lot of fruit either....just one of those years maybe??

My plums have done amazinly well this year. I have picked 6 20 litre boxes full off 2 trees. We left about 2 boxes on the trees.
one is a victoria and the other a damson

I think it was the bad weather when the early plums were flowering that prevented them from being pollinated - it was too wet and windy for the bees to be flying.

My early plums hardly had any on, the mid season did better and the late ones have been very prolific.

Something has just stripped every single one of my late plums off the tree, so i was very angry indeed.....the anger didn't last many minutes though, and i was soon back to my normal ways.

The blackbirds have been feasting on the plums this week, just pecking bits off them, and then the wasps have moved in. I was pleased to see six Red Admiral butterflies enjoying them as well though.