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Article: Picking and preserving the wild plum.
- Article from:
- Countryside & Small Stock Journal
- Article date:
- March 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Countryside Publications Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Where jams and jellies are concerned, plums are a peach of a fruit, the apple of any picker's eye. The wild plum is a fickle fruit, ripening any time between late spring and late summer. It comes in a peck of colors, a barrel of shapes, a bushel of sizes. Some are sweet, some tart. And it boasts the highest food value of any other fruit at a carbohydrate content of 20%.
From late May to midsummer, wild plums (Prunus americana among other species) are ready to be plucked. Throughout the US there are about 30 varieties of native wild plums. Additional natural hybrids add to the complexity of variation and dilution of "purity." In the Northern Hemisphere there are ...