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My pilgrimage to Foley Brook

Started by SwampDonkey, September 07, 2007, 06:30:42 PM

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SwampDonkey

Well, I remembered an old abandoned farm we planted trees on back in 1991 or there abouts. It was up in Foley Brook. Low and behold a forester doesn't just pay attention to planting trees, he has to explore and observe a little. ;D So, I found these wild Canada plums. There were 5 or 6 trees and to tell you the truth, from a distance the fruit looks like crab apples. But the taste is a lot better. These babies are just coming into season and are already sweet enough to enjoy. So folks, I now introduce you to a native tree of southeastern Canada, the Canada Plum Prunus nigra  :)  ;D





The scale bar is metric (cm/mm). I am going to eat these plums and dry the seeds, store them in the fridge until January, and pot them in hopes of starting my own. We used to have some on the farm before they got bull dozed by the neighbor along our line fence.  >:(

Marcel may well have some in his area. They are short, sprawling, thorny trees. They can remind you of hawthorn or crab apples. Often they have dried up fruit (black) that got diseased and have no seed in them when in this condition. They have showy flowers in spring time.  The leaf margins are doubly serrate, but not pointy, but blunt and they have the typical two oil glands on the leave stem like Prunus species. I think they turn orange-red in fall.

Well since I can't have persimmon, I got my plums. :)
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Tom

We have a wild plum called a Chickasaw Plum that is to us what yours is to you.  It is a small plum born on a thorny and generally non-pretty tree that grows in thickets.  I look forward to them every year.  New residents will detroy the trees before they even know that they are plums because of their looks.  Because of that we might end up without them one day.

Lanier_Lurker

Tom, would that be the same plum I grew up with in the Dawson, Ga. area?  In my old neighborhood we had a thicket that was several thousand square feet that we hacked tunnels into in order to avoid the thorns.  And we would pick the plums by the gallon in the late summer.

I would assume they are the same.  And you are right.  They don't seem to be as commons as they were 35 years ago.  :(

Tom

That's probably the one, Lanier Lurker, a wild food that will keep a young fella ....er..uh..   regular.  :D

scgargoyle

This thread reminds me of the beach plums we used to get out on the coastal sand dunes in New England. They grow on scruffy little bushes that look for the most part dead, but the fruit makes a great, intensely flavored jam.
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Lanier_Lurker

Quote from: Tom on September 08, 2007, 12:27:43 PM
That's probably the one, Lanier Lurker, a wild food that will keep a young fella ....er..uh..   regular.  :D


I thought it might be.  Wow, do I miss those "simpler" times.

The variation in color of those plums always amazed me.  The ranged from a blonde yellow to a crabapple red.  And their taste is truly something special.  The only southeastern fruit more unique and peculiar than those plums may be mayhaws. 

Dodgy Loner

Here's a picture I took of our Chickasaw plum patch this spring.  They ripen in May and the birds and raccoons finish them off within two weeks.  Real prolific fruiters.  I had to convince my dad not to bulldoze this patch when we were fencing in our horse pastures.



"There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey." -John Ruskin

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SwampDonkey

"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Dodgy Loner

They taste even better than they look ;)
"There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey." -John Ruskin

Any idiot can write a woodworking blog. Here's mine.

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