Longest Season Plums - My Plan Is Working

My plan with any fruits that I like and that grow easily here is to try and have the longest season possible of fresh fruit.  

Now this can be done in a few ways. I can take advantage of any micro climates my plot offers, so taking advantage of suntraps like sunny walls or places under glass. The other is with variety. 

It' really with variety that I've doubled down on. I've been slowly collecting and planting as many varieties as possible with apples, pears, plums and damsons. All grow really well here and all have so many interesting types. 

What I really look out for when building my collection is the earliest to crop and the latest to crop. For me this is most important in the plum harvest. Plums just taste the best when fresh off the tree, and yes we preserve lots each year, but that fresh harvest really takes some beating. 

The earliest I've put in is Herman, but that is yet to fruit here. Then I have quite a few more early plums, with opal being trained against my shipping container to try and ripen them even sooner (although again no fruit yet). 

Victoria was the first to fruit this year, although it is also the oldest fruit tree I have planted here. It fruited so heavy a big branch snapped off it and ruined the harvest. 

As the Victoria's went over the Marjories seedling kicked in. I'd be tempted to say it's be a better plum than the Victoria, although the fruit clings to the stone. Funny that this one was next as the place I got it from said it would be ready the end of September - and they're going over now. 

Some other plums just coming ready now down int he orchard and the Merryweather Damson is at it's peak - these are almost a plum rather than a damson. Smaller than a plum, but the fruit is free stone, so it's really easy to prepare for cooking and making preserves, we normally dry some each year. 

I'm looking froward to a year all my plum trees fruit and then I can really see how long a season I've managed to create for fresh plums. So far so good though. Looks like I have a few weeks left yet!