Plums with Protein

We had a dull start to Bank Holiday Sunday but by lunchtime the sun had broken through the cloud to leave us with a warm and fairly sunny afternoon.

On our last couple of visits to the plot we've picked just over 16kg of plums, Oullins Gage. Our tree is a true biennial and this year is its cropping year. It was very late coming into flower, 3 to 4 weeks later than normal due to the exceptionally cold spring.

Although we've had some good summer weather including a very hot July the plum crop hasn't caught up and is cropping the same 3 to 4 weeks later than normal.

This year we've noticed some extra protein in our plums. Some have a little pink maggot around the stone helping themselves to our delicious plums.

It certainly cuts down on the number of plums eaten on the plot. This little beastie doesn't exactly tempt you just pop a plum in your mouth and spit out the stone or just have a good bite into a large plum. Cutting into the plum it’s obvious which plums are full of protein as its easy to spot the brown waste left by the maggot around the stone. Fortunately not many of our plums are affected.

The little maggot is caused by the plum moth. I’m assuming it’s not plum saw fly as there is no sign of anything having tunnelled into the fruit. The maggot has developed inside the ripening fruit. As we like to avoid chemical controls wherever possible a pheromone plum moth trap, hung in the tree next spring, will be put into use next year. I guess it’s also likely that our Marjories Seedling and Victoria plums might have some unwelcome guests inside too.

I think all our plums will be cut into two before being eaten this year. Must take a knife to the plot!

Copyright: Original post from A Gardener's Weather Diary http://ossettweather.blogspot.co.uk/ author M Garrett