4 Variety Plum Tree

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This is a photograph of our 4 variety multi-grafted plum tree taken through bird netting. I just planted this tree last February, and all 4 varieties are already full of plums. The 4 varieties are beauty, nubiana, laroda, and elephant heart. Beauty ripened in June, but its fruits were on the tart side. They really need to be picked when they are very ripe, practically ready to go bad. And even then the skin is still tart. But beauty is a good pollinator for the other three varieties.

Myself, my partner, and my sister all agree that laroda is the best tasting plum of these varieties. Although laroda needs another variety as a pollinator to bear fruit. The flesh of elephant heart has a mild sweet flavor, but the skin is tart. The elephant heart plums are the light purple plums in this picture, and the darker purple plums are nubiana. The nubiana plums are still firm and don’t seem ripe yet despite their coloring, which is strange because nubiana was supposed to ripen before elephant heart, according to the grower.

August 10 2009 12:21 am | Plums