Plum recovery

Well, the weird organic remedy for plum brown rot seems to have worked, we sprayed it on fairly liberally 3 or 4 times and the plum crop now looks pretty damn good as you can see in the picture.
So..the magic formula, as promised...

1/4 pint milk
teaspoon bicarb of soda
a few squirts Ecover washing up liquid or hand soap (I'm sure it doesn't have to be Ecover)
top up to roughly a pint in total with warm water

We're having to give the plums a good wash before eating them because sour milk and soap doesn't bring out the flavour as well as cream or custard but that's no big deal compared to losing all our lovely fruit.

I've even had enough already to make a couple of delicious helpings of "exploded plum surprise", a quick and easy recipe that J rather liked. Lovely served cold with a big spoonful of marscapone.

"Exploded plum surprise"
A dozen or so plums, halved and stoned
Runny hunny, as much as you want, really
Bung in a pyrex dish with a lid and microwave for slightly less time than you think it's going to take! Enjoy.

Happy gardening (especially when you get to enjoy the harvest)

Brown rot

This is brown rot according to the information J found on the internet. It rots ripening plums on the branch in a matter of hours. He's also found a recipe for a spray that may cure it. I bloody well hope it works, we've got loads of plums so it'd be a terrible shame to lose them all now. The spray sounds completely innocuous and contains just household ingredients such as milk and bicarbonate of soda so I find it hard to believe it'll be powerful enough to combat the rot. Might as well try though.



If it works, I'll put the recipe on here in case I need it again.
Ho hum.
Happy gardening