A friend who originated in Virginia, came to bring me more Super Snow White tomatoes and seeds so I could grown my own next year--she saw my plums being prepped for another batch of preserves.
Damson. She recognized it immediately.
I went in search of ID on a fruit tree website. There was Stanley. His fruit not looking anything like what I had picked. Then I searched for Damson and there was my fruit, my pit and my resulting preserves--described as if they had spooned my preserves and tasted them in my kitchen.
I may call the tree Stanley but it's not the tree's name. Not what I purchased. It's not a Prune Plum. It's a Damson Plum--the very best plum for preserves. Perhaps the only plum for preserves. Turning a rich magenta when boiled down with 4 cups of sugar. Thick. Flavorful. Like nothing else.
And I have such a tree. I have these plums. Here in Maine. And I have 10 half pint jars in the store cupboard. To enjoy at my leisure. I feel like the Queen of Plums.
Some sort of magical thing must have happened in all the years (8 or 10) I have waited for Stanley to make fruit. Set fruit. I have no idea. Perhaps his label was misplaced? Exchanged? I wonder if all the other Stanley's I had to choose from were also Damson? Or just this one?
Anyway--however it happened I am so thrilled to be growing a Damson Plum here in Maine, in my garden. I am looking forward to many, many years of plum harvests and pots of magenta jewel like preserves. Enough, I hope to give as gifts. Someday.
I am reminded of a post on Orangette where a Reader in another state sent a large carton of Damson Plums to the blog's author so she could make preserves. At the time I wondered why this Plum was so special. Years ago, and finally........I get it. Got it.
The Queen Of Plums. And that's what I will be calling my tree from now on.
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