Prunus domestica Plums

Planting position: Full sun. Regions with hot summers and cold winters. Spacing depends on the specific cultivar.
Requires regular watering, keeping the soil constantly moist, especially during flowering periods. Well-draining, compost-enriched loamy soil and generous layers of mulching. If the tree weren’t shaped in the nursery cut it down to 50cm above the ground. Cut away all stems appearing below the bud union. Following is winter pruning for cup-shaped framing. The fruit is borne on older wood and light annual pruning is necessary. Thinning out is essential to trees that over produce.
Propagate from budding or grafting, but rather obtain container-grown trees from a reputable nursery.
Fertilising programme: Fertilise the same as for apricots and also apply 500g of magnesium sulphate in spring.
Harvesting is done when plums start dropping off when they are ripe.
Pests, diseases and their cures: Fruit fly - spray half-mature fruit with fenthion; San Jose scale - spray with mineral oil during dormancy period.

Plums are sweet in flesh and have small stones. Plums are eaten raw, bottled or in jams.