{"id":3839,"date":"2020-08-23T10:05:01","date_gmt":"2020-08-23T17:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/?p=3839"},"modified":"2020-08-23T11:38:55","modified_gmt":"2020-08-23T18:38:55","slug":"skunk-holler-prune-plum-jam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/archives\/3839","title":{"rendered":"Skunk Holler Prune Plum Jam"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Prune plum blossoms<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When we took possession of our house at the end\nof the pavement on Cummings Lane eight years ago, our eight apples trees and\none plum tree were in desperate need of pruning and watering and feeding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plum tree, a spindly-limbed variety\nunfamiliar to me, made no plums the first year of our residency, and though she\nblossomed well the second year produced just a few plums that identified her as\na prune plum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Prune plums<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The third year, the plum tree again had a nice\nblossom set and made about twenty plums. As these plums neared ripeness, ravens\nhelped themselves to most of the fruit before we could pick the remaining\nhandful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The slender branches of the plum grew leggy and crowded, so I pruned the tree as I had pruned countless other plum trees, but this plum reacted to my pruning by giving no fruit in the fourth year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I did not prune the tree at all the\nfollowing winter, and in our fifth year the plum tree rewarded us with a few\ndozen tasty plums. The ravens came to dine again, so we harvested the plums\nbefore they were fully ripe and slightly tart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Prune plums cooking down<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That winter, I pruned a few competing branches,\nbut otherwise allowed the branches to be leggy and more numerous than I would\nhave had this tree been like other plum trees I have known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the sixth year, the plum tree gave us several\ndozen plums and the ravens took little of the bounty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Prune plum jam<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

 The\nseventh year was not a big plum year in Mendocino, but this year, our eighth,\nthe plum tree made several hundred plums from which Marcia made delicious jam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Skunk Holler Prune Plum Jam 2020<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We labeled the jam skunk holler prune plum jam<\/em> rather than fox hollow prune plum jam<\/em> because the foxes that frequently showed themselves to us during our first few years here are rare now, while skunks traipse across our deck most evenings and stop to drink from the bowl of water at the feet of our statue of Ganesh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ganesh and water bowl<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Steps<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we took possession of our house at the end of the pavement on Cummings Lane eight years ago, our eight apples trees and one plum tree were in desperate need of pruning and watering and feeding. The plum tree, a spindly-limbed variety unfamiliar to me, made no plums the first year of our residency, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5483,6064,6063,6062,6061,4242,9,33],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3839"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3839"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3848,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3839\/revisions\/3848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}