An Unexpected Harvest

During our clearing of the land, we have been careful to preserve any fruit trees that we find. So far, we have discovered a Saskatoon tree and several crab apples.

One of our neighbours was visiting and was looking over our site. I was explaining to him that we were trying to preserve any of the old fruit trees we found. The small farms in this area were once well know for their orchards, and in clearing the old homestead site, we might come across remnants of these old orchards. As we walked around the site, our neighbour eyed one cluster of trees, which I had assumed to be crab apples, and said “I think those trees might be golden plums”. Sure enough, after we walked around the trees and gave them a close scrutiny, we spotted a handful of plums, just starting to ripen and become visible through the foliage. What a find! The taste test passed with flying colors – sweet and juicy, but with a tart and flavorful skin. I looked golden plums up on the internet, and discovered that they are a close relative to green gage plums (in fact, they are often called golden gage plums), another plum variety that was frequently planted by homesteaders.