Schoolhouse plum

About eight years ago I planted a lovely Italian prune tree. I love Italian prunes and the trees are supposed to be easy to manage and fruit abundantly. After a few years, I did get a decent prune crop. And then nothing. For nearly three years. Although Italian prunes are supposed to be self-fertile, I purchased another prune to serve as a cross pollinizer, hoping this would help. Nothing. So, out came the Italian prune. I’m pretty merciless about removing fruit trees and other plants that are not pulling their weight.

The tree purchased for cross-pollinization with the Italian prune, a yellow prune style plum called Schoolhouse, stayed and has flourished. I like the Schoolhouse plums much better than those on my Shiro tree. Shiro is an Asian plum. It is tasty, but it is super juicy, almost too much so. The Schoolhouse tastes great, plus it is a free stone plum that can be dried into prunes. The Shiro is so wet this would be really difficult. The flesh of the Schoolhouse is much more solid, with a texture I prefer.

In addition to all this, the Schoolhouse is beginning to fruit heavily. The branch you see in the picture above ripped off the tree from the weight of the prunes. I need to be careful to keep the branches propped up so they can carry the plums.

So, two thumbs up for the Schoolhouse plum!

Sandy