Willow Farm, home of Waterland Organics and CropShare, has an orchard with three different varieties of plums: Victoria, Guinevere and Ouillan’s Golden Gage. Although all three are self-fertile, they tend to give better crops when they are cross-pollinated- just like with CropShare, things are always easier with friends!

Plum trees set fruit on buds from the previous season’s growth. After last summer’s perfect growing conditions the plum trees at Willow Farm were covered in beautifully sweet and juicy fruit.

One of Willow Farm’s scrummy Guinevere plums (we weren’t scrumping, honest!) The dusty white coat on ripe plums like the one above is known as “wax bloom”- a natural barrier which helps retain the plums’ juices.

Waterland Organics distributed their plums in three different ways: Their veg box customers were able to choose them as one of their extras, they were for sale from one of Mill Road’s favourite, Arjuna, and they were sold to COFCO.

Ouillan’s Golden Gage with its stones replaced with a sugar cube in front of Guinevere plums

Some of our lucky CropShare volunteers bagged these beauties as part of their end-of-day reward, and we thought we’d share with you one of the recipes they came up with:

 

Bavarian Plum Dumplings
Click the link above to see how these turned out- we think they are perfect for the end of plum season to keep your tummy warm and full as Autumn approaches!