After last year’s dearth, the plums are something of a mixed blessing this time round. The yellow plum tree has gone mad. We’ve made plum crumbles, plum jam, plum jelly, plum cordial, frozen whole plums, frozen stewed plums, bottled plums, plum chutney and even dried some for prunes.

Oh, and a new one for us – plum leather! To make plum jelly you only need the juice so the remaining pulp we laid out in a thin layer on a baking sheet which dried in the sun – 3 days later you’re left with plum leather. It’s basically just a healthy snack. Not bad to chew on. Has anyone else tried this?

We are exhausted but they are still falling from the tree and rotting on the ground faster than we can put them on the compost pile. Even the chickens and dogs have had enough – and that’s just the yellow plums!

The red plums have also finished but there weren’t too many of those. Next up is the greengages. There aren’t quite so many of those which is a bit of a shame as they are Jackie’s favourite. She’s already made a greengage and vanilla tart from those. There are also quite a few damson trees around here – a number on the plot of land next to ours. So we’ll be grabbing those shortly as well.

Above are greengages and damsons, left are the Stanleys – they are still pretty hard and will be the last to come on line. They’ll used for the plum liqueurs which’ll be ready for Christmas.

Meanwhile, I’ve also been busy on the woodworking front and have made a new bench and table (left, below). Perfect for breakfast outside in the morning sun.