What to do with 7 Pounds of Plums?
I picked seven pounds of prune plums from the tree in my backyard last weekend. It took about ten minutes. Some plums had already fallen to the ground, and the rest that were on the tree came loose with barely a touch. For those beyond my reach, a gentle shake of the branches with my pole grabber did the trick.
The first year we lived in this house, I was surprised that the plums didn’t ripen until September. When I lived in California, we had a Santa Rosa plum tree. Those plums ripened in June or July. Santa Rosa plums are deep red and juicy with a distinctive flavor that is hard to describe.
Prune plums are yellowish inside but no less delicious. Still, I can’t eat seven pounds of plums before they rot. So, what to do with them? I considered three options.
1. Eat as many as I can and compost the rest
Composting left over food is better than throwing it in the trash. Food scraps in a composter will break down within weeks. When they are buried in a landfill, they may take decades to decompose. And, in doing so, they will release methane, a potent greenhouse gas. I wish that more people had easy access to composting of food waste.
Still, I can think of much better ideas than sending the plums for composting.
2. Make something
There are plenty of recipes that use plums. I could make plum jam, plum pudding, or plum cake. While those might be tempting, they all require more sugar than I want to eat. I feel better when I keep my sugar consumption to that found naturally in fruit.
These are called prune plums for a reason. A few weeks ago, I made prunes from about five dozen of them. If you find yourself with an abundance of prune plums, here’s a simple recipe:
Remove the pits—slice partway down one side and pull them out
Place the plums in a single layer on a rack over a sheet pan
Bake in the oven at low temperature (200 F) for 5-8 hours
Check every hour or so and remove when they have released most of their liquid
Cool and refrigerate—they will keep for months
I already had enough prunes, so I decided not to make another batch.
3. Share the abundance
It seems only fair that those of us with dozens of plums share with those who do not. I remember one summer when I lived in California, I donated 30 pounds of zucchini to a local food bank. This was after my husband declared, “A zucchini-free meal? Wow!” and I knew I needed to do something.
Unfortunately, these days it is not as easy to donate excess produce to food banks as it used to be. Many don’t accept home grown fruits and vegetables.
Instead, I sent a message to my neighborhood Buy Nothing group. (If you aren’t familiar with Buy Nothing, these groups exist on Facebook and allow neighbors to offer up whatever they no longer need.) They responded enthusiastically.
If you’ve got fruit trees or a garden at home, what are you harvesting? Whenever you find yourself with more than you and your family can eat, I encourage you to be creative and not let it go to waste.