A FAIR DAMSON IS A MOST WELCOME SIGHT

The area I live in used to be part of a fruit farm that went right down to the sea, so as I hurry around my constitutional circuit every morning, past the allotments, across the golf course to the beach, there are ancient fruit trees flowering and fruiting, with interesting crosses and sports to examine, that give me an excuse to stop and catch my breath. The main crop seems to be blackthorn ( Prunus spinosa), a space invader that loves the seaside, covered this year with sloes only on trees that face west (the eastside catches the early morning sun that dispels spring frosts too quickly and destroys the earliest off-white fluffy blossom). These tiny rock-hard fruits with their blue-black bloom will stay on the boughs until the frosts, but can be picked with the cold spell replicated in the freezer, then steeped in gin and sugar with a twist of lemon peel in time for Christmas. The strained fruit pulp can be set in slabs of chocolate for post-festivity dental kamikaze. Ancestor of the cultivated plum, blackthorn makes an efficient native hedge (available from hedgenursery. co.uk), its spiny branches will keep out all creatures great and small, while attracting many others, but its peripheries need to be regularly mown to keep suckers at bay. One size up is the cherry plum ( Prunus cerasifera) and the French mirabelle ( Prunus insititia). With either red or yellow cherry-sized fruits, the trees have good disease resistance and make a pretty foraging hedge with early nectar sources for insects. Varieties (from orangepippintrees. co.uk) including ‘Ruby’, ‘Golden sphere’ and ‘Mirabelle de Nancy’ are delicious in jams, and make a mean plum brandy. Use them in a rich batter, dusted with vanilla sugar for a Clafoutis aux Mirabelles or in a frangipane tart. To complicate the issue, Ripe for poaching: clockwise from top, fruit pickings at Francine’s own table and, inset, her homemade plum jam; French plum ‘Mirabelle de Nancy’, blackthorn, plum damson ‘Farleigh’ black and green bullace are also forms of Prunus insititia. The English black bullace (available from keepersnursery.co.uk) and the white bullace with in fact, yellowish fruit, and rare varieties like the ‘Essex’ and ‘Royal’ with larger sweeter fruits, are distinguished from their other close relatives by their rounder fruit and smoother stones. If you’d like to try a rare wild bullace liqueur, Colin and Phyllis Hingston, from Worcestershire, make one that can occasionally be bought online from demijohn. co.uk around the Christmas period, after a good harvest. The most welcomed fruit on my walk is the damson, also part of the insititia family. Originally from Damascus, and introduced by the Romans, their stones have been found in ancient digs. Strangely sweet and sharp at the same time, the fruits are oval. Many varieties are only distinguishable from their stones, but the most commonly grown varieties are the almost black-fruited ‘Farleigh’, originally found growing wild here in Kent; the almost plum-sized ‘Merryweather’ with large hyacinth-blue coloured damsons that are good to eat raw (from blackmoor.co.uk), and the ‘Westmoreland’, an ancient variety that has a website (lythdamsons.org.uk), and a damson day in spring. Damsons are disease free and will grow in almost any soil, apart from pure peat or heavy clay. They don’t thrive in shade, competition results in leggy trees. The best way to propagate them is by digging up and replanting suckers that will usually fruit in seven years. Mine (probably from a ‘Merryweather’ cross) are ready to eat now. Best picked with a willow fruit picker from crocus.co.uk, most go straight into the freezer for autumnal oatmeal, almond and brown sugar crumbles, but many get eaten straight away, and there’s plenty of competition from birds, wasps and my hens, who sit and wait under the tree, as a diversion during their annual feather moult. When cooking damsons, the stones pop up to the surface and can be scooped out with a slotted spoon. Honey-flavoured with a touch of tartness and described by epicurean Edward Bunyon as containing “a flavour unequalled with sufficient juice for refreshment, but not for a bath”, the shop-bought Greengage is often a woolly disappointment. Grow your own, full size and ready to fruit ‘Reine-Claude Verte’ from barcham.co.uk, or ‘Cambridge Gage’ and ‘Coe’s Golden Drop’ on moderately vigorous St Julien rootstock from the organic nursery — walcotnursery.co.uk. Eat as many gages as you can, straight from the tree, and then, when stuffed, pick the rest to poach then freeze. Add lemon juice when jamming, and serve with toasted brioche dusted with cinnamon sugar, or add to Lesley Waters’s knickerbocker glory recipe simmered in butter and cinnamon, served with vanilla ice cream and topped with toasted almonds and oats, and grated chocolate. Just what I need as a restorative after my early morning walk. For more gardening tips and advice, visit