plum crazy!!!

Why is it we have been so lucky to have good neighbors that give us fruit this year?  Just blessed I guess.

"Do you like plums?"

"Of course! I LOVE plums!"

"My neighbor has a plum tree and isn't going to use them..."

"I'll be right over."


That was the conversation between my mother-in-law and me. 

 Just never you mind that I showed up in pajama bottoms and a t-shirt.  I was ready to pick.  

child labor

The tree was to the ground with fruit.  Just right for three year olds to reach.  She picked quite a bit until she got bored and moved on to stocking the bird house with plums "to feed the birds".

that's just a drop in the bucket...

We ended up with four full boxes.  We would have picked more, but we ran out of time.

washed...

before processing...

after...

I decided to bottle a batch (7 quarts in this case) whole.  Bottling them was a breeze! I just washed them, put them in bottles, filled with sugar syrup and processed them in my steamer canner. The syrup was a light syrup.  2 to 1 water to sugar. I heated the sugar and water until dissolved.  I then loaded the quarts onto the steamer canner and processed for 25 minutes.  The official instructions say to poke the  skins with a needle so that they won't split.  Ya.  Didn't do that.  I was looking for speed people.  I'd already bottled 3 quarts of tomatoes and 15 quarts of peaches (yes, more peaches).  I wanted ease.

Scrap ease.  My seven quarts of bottled whole plums didn't even make a dent in the 2 2/3 boxes I have left.  I'd given away 4 grocery sacks to neighbors and that didn't really make a dent either.  Then, my mom-in-law brought over half of her box saying she'd bottled all she could use and I could have the rest.  Ok.  I'm going plum crazy.  Who wants jam?!

*Editors note*  Leave a 1 1/2" head space as the plums will create own juice.