2018 has been something of a plum harvest disaster.

We tend to spend much of July and August in the area to the north of Milton Keynes, a stretch of canal with a good number of usually prolific plum trees which provide enough foraging potential to make the plum jam we need to satisfy demand next season.

When we visited all our favourite trees this year we mostly came away empty handed, starting with the yellow and red Mirabelles, and then by the main plum harvest a few weeks later.

We are not sure why the harvest was so poor this year but concluded it was probably due to the cold snap in late March killing off the blossom, as well as fetching off our recently applied blacking - but thats another story.

It wasn't all doom and gloom because we were tipped off about a good stand of plum trees in Braunston. These provided enough fruit to make a good stock of Sunshine Plum Jam, a yellow jam mixed with orange zest which works as well with breakfast as it does with afternoon tea.


The big disappointment of the season was the failure of the prolific pink plum tree which is usually covered in huge fruit which hang like giant baubles and form the basis of our ever popular Cinnamon Plum Jam.

Hey Ho - thats the way with foraging, you never know what you are going to find from one season to the next. Lets hope for better things in 2019.