To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: RE: [NAFEX] Wild fruit (beach plums) provide a tart treat
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 09:48:11 -0500
At 07:29 AM 8/11/2004 -0700, Mark wrote:
Does
anyone in NAFEX grow beach plums in an environment that is not near the
beach?
I've got two seedling beach plums that I purchased from Ken Asmus at
OIKOS Tree Crops, several years ago. Planted along the edge of my
orchard, close to the European & Japanese hybrid plums, though I
don't recall if their bloom periods overlap. I'm probably 500-600
miles from a beach, discounting the swimming beach I made at the farm
pond a hundred feet away from these beach plums.
The two bushes I've got are quite disparate in size - one's about 3 ft
tall, the other at least 6 ft. No problem with brown rot or any
other disease/pest(that I've noticed), and they're not (yet) suckering -
if that's a trait of the species. I have a good clay soil, and
these are located in a spot with good drainage, but definitely not a
beach setting.
They set and matured a good crop of fruit last year - small, but tasty,
and many just dried up on the plants after ripening, almost like raisins,
without dropping.
Lucky Pittman
USDA Cold Zone 6
AHS Heat Zone 7
Hopkinsville, KY