Geraldine Butterworth asked 15 years ago
Can I pick plums while they are not fully ripe.? Every year my plums are destroyed with wasps so this year I thought I might beat them to the fruit. Would they ripen off the tree?
1 Answers
Gerry Daly Staff answered 7 years ago
Plums lose flavour as soon as they are picked, and while they soften somewhat after picking, it is not really ripening as favour is being lost.
The best way to deal with wasp attacks is to remove … carefully … all wasp damaged and over-ripe fruit, including from the ground to reduce the attraction for wasps, and then to pick every day or two days, picking the fruit when ripe. Plums taste best when ripe but not over-ripe, the flesh should still be just firm, not hard. Wasps tend to favour over-ripe fruit.
Plums ripen somewhat unevenly, the first flowers to open, and be pollinated, ripen first. Flowers can set two week after at teh beginning and end of flowering and mature accordingly.
