"Plums are Coming..."

It's that time of the year again: "Plum-a-palooza 2013" is coming!!!

After last year's Plumpocalypse I'm trying to get a bit of a head-start on the madness. Last year, we picked more than 90 POUNDS of plums, which resulted in several dozen jars of jam.

The plums are ripening, but are not yet at Plumpocalypse status. Dick and I went out yesterday morning to start picking. There are TONS of plums that are not yet ripe, and will be ready soon. We picked about 5 pounds worth, which was a nice start. I asked Linda to come over last night for a refresher course of making plum jam. It was super helpful to do it all again, especially with a more reasonable amount of plums to start with. I figure maybe I'll go pick plums every two or three days so it simply isn't as overwhelming as it was last year. It might help. Or, it might be for not. I'm sure I'll be overwhelmed anyway. :)


a close-up of one of the plum trees in our backyard


more plums ripening on the tree


5 lbs picked plums, washed and ready to go!


cooking in 1/2 cup water


after being cooked, strained, and having the sugar and pectin added

Here's the recipe from last night's jammin' session:

5 lbs of fresh plums = 20 cups

cooked with 1/2 cup water

equals: 8 cups cooked fruit (seeds and skins strained)

4 cups sugar
2 boxes pectin (1/2 cup)

yields: 8-1/2 12-oz jars

note: the jam was more like a sauce in consistency (which is fine, and has other purposes!)
might add another box of pectin for more jam-like consistency.

update from Linda:

And I remembered something else: just mix 1/4 cup or so of the sugar in with the pectin (so it does not clump when you add it into the pot.) Bring fruit to a boil, add pectin/sugar mix, bring to a boil again. Then add the rest of the sugar, bring to a full rolling boil for at least 1 minute. We forgot the frozen plate trick to check the set of the jam. Clearly I am out of practice and this was a great refresher!!!