Sloe Plum

This is my sloe plum, probably Allegheny plum. I collected it as a seed . Every year it produces glorious bloom. One year I decorated it with Christmas balls, which I subsequently added to. I think the decorations look even better with the spring bloom. The balls are too hazardous to remove because of the thorny fruit spurs.  I had always called this a sloe plum, mistakenly thinking the name was slow plum because it does not ripen till about August. A little internet search showed that sloe plum originated in Europe where the fruits were used to make jelly, preserves, and wine. There it was harvested after frost, like persimmons are here, to reduce the astringent flavor. This could be the English plum, but I rather think because of  where I found the parent growing, that it is our native Allegheny plum. I have never tried to make jelly from it, but that might be a good project for this year.

Spring Blooming Trees From Seed

 

 

The first photo is regular ol' peach, grown from a pit. Peach trees are worth growing merely for the blooms, and anyone can have one cheaply and quickly by planting a pit. It is not worth it to me to buy a tree and nurse it along to provide deer and worm food. I don't care to spray and nurse fruit trees along just to be disappointed by a small amount of wormy hard knots. But the blooms! So easy and beautiful! If a deer wipes mine out by wiping his antlers on the bark, no worry. Just plant a few more pits. Mine are the old timey white fruited variety, and they often produce a few small fruits worth nibbling under the tree, if I can get there before the deer. These are clear seeded and Mother used to break them open and dry them in the hot Alabama sun. This is a good use of those old abandoned cars you see in people's yards. It gets as hot in there as in my attic, and is easier to access. They will make wonderful dried fruit pies in the winter.
The second picture is of a slow plum and I also grew it from seed collected in the wild. The fruit which comes in the fall (slow plum) is beautiful on the tree, ripening in a succession of yellow, orange, and red. It is not suitable to eat, at least to me, due to it's smallness, large seed, and sour taste. (It might make good jelly.) The flowers are the reason I grow this small tree. The picture shows the reason I leave my Christmas balls on it the year round. (Well, one of the reasons-the tree has thorns and can poke your eye out if you are not careful). It looks like snow to me, something we don't see that much of in east central Alabama.