The plums on my tree are ripening, but they’re still smallish. If I leave them, will they keep growing, or should I pick them and just eat a lot of little plums?
Once they begin to ripen they will stop growing in size.
Where do you live? I live near San Jose in CA, and I just harvested the last of the plums from my tree today. I’ve been picking them for about a week now, and they are delicious.
I’m in Indiana. The plums I’ve tried have been wonderful, just small. Not as small as last year, though–I had a blue million plums that were just slightly larger than cherries. These are about apricot-sized. I’ll probably start picking them when it cools off tonight, then.
a gentle light squeeze will just start to feel soft in a ripe plum.
Mine range in size from apricot size to maybe twice as big. If you want them to be bigger, you might try thinning them in the spring so the tree can concentrate on growing fewer of them.
That’s probably what I need to do…I think this tree was considered an ornamental, and I’m just now getting around to figuring out how to handle it as a real fruit tree.
This is the test - not a change of colour - don’t pick them until they start to turn a bit soft.
I give them a slight tug, and only pick them if they fall easily after that. But I only eat them after they are slightly soft to the touch. Usually takes a day or two after picking. Just had three of them after lunch. 