The 2024 Plum Harvest

Peter Rukavina

One of the casualties of Hurricane Fiona, in 2022, was a plum tree that Catherine and her father planted many years ago. The tree had been a prolific producer of plums for years—I made a tasty apple-plum sauce from its fruit and that of its neighbouring apples back in 2020—but Fiona threw it to the ground.

As the tree wasn’t snapped, we sought guidance as to possibly saving it, and a month after Fiona we ratcheted it to vertical, hopeful that this would take. Late last year we removed the strapping, on the perhaps-spurious advice that the tree would seek its own salvation. It didn’t. Or rather it did, but at 45ยบ to the ground.

Despite this, and despite a bad case of black knot that afflicted the tree this year, it produced a (very) small crop of plums this season, which I harvested in the rain yesterday:

In the foreground is a light green bowl, being held in front of me by one hand, filled with 10 small purple plums. In the background is a plum tree, sitting at an angle to the ground, with green leaves, behind which is a red fence and our neighbour's blue house. The sky is dark, and there's evidence of recent rain on the leaves of the tree.

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Photo of Peter RukavinaI am . I am a writer, letterpress printer, and a curious person.

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