Ruud Kleinpaste: Harvesting fruit and making jam

A few weeks ago, I came across one of my favourite Native trees: the Tree Fuchsia. Most people in the world that grow house plants know Fuchsia as an elegant producer of flowers. I took my Dutch Cousin to Banks Peninsula, and he simply thought I was taking the micky: how can you have a Fuchsia species that grows up to 12 meters?

The flowers are beautiful and the bark is outstanding – literally. But the seeds are something else again, dark purple, soft and edible.  

Instead of eating these seeds raw or cooking them into a jam, I felt they were miniature purple plums that could be planted to become new Fuchsia seedlings, and that’s what became my new harvesting project.  

These seeds are tricky to germinate, simply because they are so tiny. Soak them in water as soon as they are soft and ripe, try to remove the flesh or pulp, and spread the seeds on a good, wet seed-raising mix in a shady spot.   

When they germinate, put them into a lighter, warm, moist place and keep your fingers crossed.  

And just a few days ago I noticed our Damson Plums were ripening quickly (despite Canterbury’s awful weather this “summer”). The plums were falling off the tree, so I reported this feature to my Gardener Supreme, and decided to harvest them right-away.  

Now, the “normal” way to harvest these beautiful plums is by going up a ladder and grabbing the fruits within reach, chucking them in a bag before going down the ladder and tossing them in a large bucket on the orchard floor, before climbing back up. 

The “Straight shoots” at the top often do not bear fruit – they are a waste of time climbing.  

After grabbing all the plums, way up high, you can start the process of creating one of the best Jams in the World (see recipe at the end). 

As many people know by now, it’s best to prune stonefruit trees soon after harvest – it keeps the tree shorter and easier to manage next year and it opens the damson tree up to wind and space on the inside.  

I thought: “maybe it’s a good idea to prune at the same time as harvesting!” 

Two birds with one stone and not too long on the ladder with arthritis, etc.  

So far, it’s worked pretty well. Heaps of fruit and much quicker retrieval of the ripe fruits.  

Of course, when consulting Lynda Hallinan’s book on Damsons, I discovered that I was certainly not the first one to come up with that idea.  

And you know what? The Jam that Julie chucked into the jars is absolutely amazing! 

 

Jam Recipe – a Mix of Lynda Hallinan’s recommendations and Julie’s moderations  

For a kilo of Damson plums:  

1. Boil them up in half a cup of water. 
2. Bring to a gentle simmer, until it’s “red and pulpy”. 
3. Add 750 grams of sugar. Stir until dissolved.  
4. Boil for 10 to 15 minutes… keep an eye on it so it doesn’t get burnt. 
5. Take out all the stones with a slotted spoon or tongs (the reason is simple: those stones can break your teeth!!). 
6. Test the mixture for “setting” – not too tough, please!  
7. Chuck them into the sterilised jars.  

 

Now think about some croissants from Le Panier filled with damson plum jam!  

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame podcast
from News talks 'b.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Route Clime Passed is our man in the garden on
Saturday mornings on News Talks z'd be, and he is
celebrating a summer harvest this morning. Morning Rude, good morning.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Are you all good?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, I'm very well. Tell you what we've been harvesting
a fear bit at our place. Actually, just the number
of tomatoes. I've absolutely nailed the tomatoes this year. I
know that nailing tomatoes has nothing to bring about too much,
but give him if it's last year versus this year.
My goodness, I'm sort of like getting into like Chatney
territory now. I think you know that's right. Yeah, there's
so many and there's only so much you can do.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
No, there's there's lots more you can do. You can
also stuff things up like I've done. Oh no, I've
only got a half if you're like amount of tomorrow.
So it's not, as you say, easy, and you know
anybody can do it. Sometimes things can go wrong, and
it's in my case, you know it's it's the watering.
It's actually where I learned how to pre water before

(01:07):
you plant the plants in a saturated area. I remember
when we talked about four weeks ago, right, yeah, that's it,
so that that didn't go that well. But yeah, I've
been harvesting different things because you know, I've been on
the road a bit with my cousin and with my
little three and a half year old. So it's called
fun and no, it's it's cool fun. But we found

(01:29):
fu share Tree Future on Bank's Peninsula. But it is
a really beautiful and quite common in that area. And
the cool thing is they've got the most amazing flowers
and the most deep purple fruits which are ripe right now.
So I thought, blow it. I'm going to put those things.

(01:50):
I'm going to get them and I'm going to put
them in a container of some seed raising mix, and
I'm going to do according to what people say it
has to be done, because it's not easy growing those things,
by the way, So there you go. Yeah, yeah, so
that's what I've done, literally, and I put all the
stuff on the on the on the on the website.

(02:10):
There very tiny seeds determinate them. You simply put them in,
you know, you put them in some soaking water and
then slowly put them gently all over the place in
your in your bed of of of mix, your seat
raising mix, and basically that can happen in that can
actually come up in three weeks or three years.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
And you can also turn those little little you can
turn them into jam. Couldn't your little seeds?

Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah? Well you probably could, but I don't think that
many people do that. Not those particular seeds off the
tree future they are at a ball mode. You used
to eat them all the time. But what we did,
what did what we did? A week later, Julie and
I just realized that the dems and plums were falling
off the tree. They they actually are weird if you

(03:00):
taste them raw, but actually not that bad. But boy
do you make jam out of that? It's unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah that's normally, yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
Yeah, that's right. Normally when you pick them, you picked
them in the later on you as you know with stonefoot,
you actually chew them into or you know, actually get
the trees and properly cut them into proper if you
like trees, not too high, not too low, and all
that sort of sort of pruning is important. But I thought,

(03:33):
you know what I'm going to do as I'm pruning.
I'm picking the things off at the same time. So
I thought, that's it. You don't have to go on
your leeder twice.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
You know that doesn't so you you to be totally clear.
You're picking your dams and plums and then pruning at
the same time.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
Yeah, no, I think I actually prune the whole if
you like, the whole plums off, the whole stalks with
the plums, and then you take it down. I ended
to Julie and she starts taking from the ground.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, yes, exactly.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
You don't have to buck around up there. So this
is how it went. And then you realized that it
wasn't me that actually invented it, because I saw it
in the Helinda Elenan's book as well. Some people have
done that. So all these little bits and pieces. I
decided to put that in because it saves you so
much time if you want to harvest the damsel plums.
It's great.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Nice. Yeah, that sounds great. Okay, you've got a little
recently for us as well. It's a bit of a
mix up, I think from Linda's recommendations and Julie's as well. Right,
so we're going to make sure We put that up
on the news Talk ZB website so people can make
a bit of a bit of a spread as well
with their damnse and plums because they are they how
sweet are they coming off the tree or coming off
the freshly prune branches?

Speaker 3 (04:50):
They are not that sweet. So you put a bit
of sugar the actual gem. Yeah. Absolutely. And one thing
you have to remember.

Speaker 4 (04:57):
That's good for your teeth is to make sure that
you take all these pickle hard seeds out of the
gym because if you make one mistake, and I don't
think sudden Cross would be impressed.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
No, no, no, there's a couple of Frank Mollers. No
one wants that. Hey you very much, sir. I hope
you've enjoyed. I hope you've enjoyed showing your cousin around
the place as well. And we will see you next
rout climb past in the garden for us.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
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