Early Golden Asian Plum

I bought what I thought was a Cambridge Gage plum tree back in 2019. It gee somewhat slowly and had small leaves and narrow branches, but was healthy and happy in my yard and I was happy to see it trying to bloom a little after a couple of years. None of our other trees bloomed quite so early, and it took a few years to begin setting any fruit, largely thanks to a well established decorative plum on my neighbor's property.

The fruit are beautiful - uniform round golden globes with a deep red blush on the side the sun hit. The flesh eas juicy and gently sweet with a sort of difficult to describe bouquet to the flavor, and the skins were distinctly tart. Absolutely delicious for fresh eating. But it troubled me a bit that the color of the fruit wasn't what I had expected - sll descriptions and photos of a Cambridge Gage were distinctly green fruit with only a light freckling of blush. Some of my friends who tasted the fruit were of the opinion that it might be an apricot. I felt a little dejected, but the tree continued to produce more heavily each year, just delicious juicy sweet-tart plums with that beautiful blush.

Finally I put two and two together by looking at the growth habits of the tree itself - low, spreading, wide forked and narrow in the leaves and twigs. It matched the Early Golden plum to a tee.

Last year we harvested over fifty pounds of fruit from our little tree. It is prolific, happy in out zone 8b maritime climate, the fruit are easy to harvest and delicious for fresh eating. They also bake pretty well but some of the more delicate sweet flavors can get lost. The make nice tart preserves, but the moist fruit doesn't dry so well as a prune plum - you get a lot of tart skin, which I enjoy but some people find a bit mouth puckering. If we continue to get large harvests I'll need to find some better methods of preserving. Sadly I think the fruit is too delicate to be canned as halves without turning mushy.

I've put in quite a few fruit trees, almost a small orchard now, and this is my favorite of the trees fruiting so far. It thrives in the local climate, the fruit are beautiful and deliciously sweet and tart like I remember plums being when I was a kid, and it has had no trouble with disease or pests. As much as I tried to plan everything I guess it was an unexpected surprise that has delighted me the most.

Two years in a row I have bought this tree. Two years in a row it has not survived the journey has has not woken up. Skip this tree unless you live next door to Washington state.

Flavorful with a dry texture. The tree has an alternate bearing habit, and is very vigorous. This variety is not fully hardy in our colder part of zone 5, but the fruit are worth the risk.