[gembob]

I have been looking for plum, sloe or damson trees for the past few days. I have attached a picture of a fruit that I have found. Being a newbie I am a bit unsure of what it is. I am guessing its part of the plum family and that it edible. Has anyone any ideas?

[VeggieVirgin]

It's hard to tell from the photo, but if the bush you got it from had whacking great thorns on it, then it's a sloe.

[gembob]

Thanks for the mega quick response. It was more like a tree than a bush and i don't think there were any thorns on it. When I got home, i cut one in half and it had a stone in the middle similar to a plum and smelt plum ish. The tree didn't have large amounts of fruits and the fruit that it did have weren't in clusters if that helps.

[VeggieVirgin]

Thanks for the mega quick response. It was more like a tree than a bush and i don't think there were any thorns on it. When I got home, i cut one in half and it had a stone in the middle similar to a plum and smelt plum ish. The tree didn't have large amounts of fruits and the fruit that it did have weren't in clusters if that helps.

It sounds more like a damson, then - a damson is like a very small plum.

Sloes aren't exactly edible, btw, though if you mix them with gin and sugar and leave them for a couple of months, they're eminently drinkable!

[gembob]

I was hoping to put any sloes that I find in gin. At this rate i think it will be good old lemon thats going in it. Thanks for the advise on damsons, think ill give them a few more weeks to ripen and then go and get them. Fingers crossed I don't poison myself.

[compostqueen]

the pic was a bit small but it looks like a greengage to me, which is like a plum only green or yellow and as sweet as sugar. Absolutely delish!

[shokkyy]

I've got two trees in  my hedgerow that look very much like that. Mine are wild plums. Look just like small plums, green/yellow, stone in middle, taste just a tad on the bitter side. Trees are getting fairly tall but kind of narrow and willowy in shape. You'll have to wait and see if they change colour to know whether they're damson or wild plum

If I can find my camera I'll take a piccie of fruit and leaves so you can compare with yours.

[gembob]

Thanks for all the advise guys, i just had a little bite of one and it tastes similar to plum so am guessing that its ok to eat. I had trouble getting a full size picture to load onto the computer hence the tiny picture. Would be fab to see the tree Shokkyy, do you eat the fruit and if so when is it at its best?

[shokkyy]

Thanks for all the advise guys, i just had a little bite of one and it tastes similar to plum so am guessing that its ok to eat. I had trouble getting a full size picture to load onto the computer hence the tiny picture. Would be fab to see the tree Shokkyy, do you eat the fruit and if so when is it at its best?

No, I don't. I've got a tree full of super sweet golden gages in my garden, so I've never been remotely tempted to eat the considerably less sweet wild plums I have eaten one or two before, though, just to see what they tasted like. And an old chap I know told me when he was a kid all the local kids used to scrump them from the trees, so I guess they don't do you any harm. Maybe they'd be good for jam or jelly, but I've never tried it. I've got blackthorn/sloes in my hedgerow as well, though sadly I can't stand sloe gin so they're wasted on me, but I'll try to do a piccie with sloe, wild plum and golden gage side by side so you can see the difference.

[VeggieVirgin]

sadly I can't stand sloe gin so they're wasted on me

I did damson brandy one year, along the same lines as sloe gin. Maybe sloe brandy would work too? Or sloe-whatever-your-favourite-tipple-is. Seems a shame to waste the sloes (although the ones we don't pick here seem to get eaten by something).

[viettaclark]

Could be a yellow cherry plum and you can tell if they're ripe because they drop all over the grass which saves picking. They're sweet and make good jam/crumbles/just eat raw.

[8doubles]

I thought yellow cherry plum, taste wise i have found them very bland.

Greengages, if you find a tree are food fit for gods.

[madcat]

I've got a wild plum tree which I do pick.  The fruit when ripe is yellow and sweet - eat like sweets or cook in something that you puree or drip - getting the stones out of them raw is a right pig.  Next doors have a similar one that ripens earlier to red.

I've also got some small gage - bushes really - also sweet (the slugs and snails climb the trees to get at the fruit!) and also a pain to stone.

We eat some of the plums and gages raw as fruit, some I make into plum cheese (push the puree thro a sieve - gets rid of the stones and most of the skin which would otherwise make the jam tough and potentially tooth cracking because fishing them out of jam takes forever!), some into a batch of spiced plum sauce (for the freezer) to jolly up cold pork or duck ... or even pork sausage when I'm getting desperate for something a bit different!  Oh and plum chutney is nice, but a little goes a long way.  Like damson chutney.

Along the lane the damsons & sloes are already going black, about a month early ...  but then even the elder bushes are looking very stressed from lack of rain.

[gembob]

Thanks for the great ideas madcat, the spiced plum sauce sounds wonderful. I'll hunt for a recipe and give it a go. Just picked some of the fruit and I am going to have a think what to do with it. 

[Paul Plots]

It is possible that this is a nectarine although the picture is so small it is hard to tell.

We have a 15 foot high tree that produces relatively small fruit – edible if the weather is right.