The few plums on the later-fruiting plum tree in the garden have finally ripened. There aren't many of them (though a few more than the paltry twelve the other plum tree produced) and quite a few had already ripened and fallen off the tree by the time I returned home.
When I went to pick a few for stewing, I realised that these were no ordinary plums - they were HUGE, each of them the size of a duck egg. No doubt this is the result of our tres rainy summer (yes, even in Essex which is allegedly the driest county in England - even drier than Jerusalem and Beirut according to Gardeners' World - the rain this summer has been torrential and relentless.) All that rain is probably also responsible for the many manky plums that were on the tree, the branch that looks like it's developed some sort of nasty fungal infection, and the proliferation of small crawly creatures that were inside some of the plums when I cut them up!!
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