I would try refrigerating them instead.

Itilton, I'll be in France for three weeks. And my husband won't remember they're in the fridge. Ugh. Thanks though, Mrs. G

MRs G

Have a nice trip! Let us know what unique and tasty fruit
varieties you come across while there.

I have a Stanley plum. Young tree. It bore its first crop last year (22 luscious plums). This year I counted about
110 plums. Very blue but not yet ripe. Running later than
last year as my records show I picked them in 2014 on
September 15th. Must be the cool weather as my Bartlett
pear is not yet ripe either although any day now it should be
ready.

Euro plums will keep in the fridge for 3 weeks easily, if they are sound- especially if they are not soft ripe but the freezer is fine. I would pit them and place the halves on a tray, freeze them and than use a spatula to lift them off the tray and place in ziplocks.

You can also freeze them whole with the seeds as you suggest, but I don't see the point unless you are flat out of time.

I picked my Stanleys on Monday. Not as many as in most years, but astonishingly free of mold and rot, even after the wet weather we've been having. I'll credit propiconazole, which causes no problems I can see, despite the label saying not to apply it to this type of plum.

>>And my husband won't remember they're in the fridge. Ugh.Would he remember that they are on the tree to pick if you tell him when, perhaps another week or so,..nothing better then ripe fruits off the tree.

My blue plums were still on the trees a few years ago but ripe when we had several days below freezing. When I checked the damage after the storm they were all frozen solid. So I picked, bagged, and went right in the freezer. They keep very well, I'm still u s ing them. Only problem is when thawed they turn to mush and don't have a lot of flavor. My favorite way to preserve them is to can with the pits. It imparts a cherry flavor into the fruit th a t is delicious. Otherwise I eat fresh or dried and they keep well in the fridge. Just e-mail your hubby to pick them in a week or so.

If plums were tasteless coming out of the freezer they were tasteless going in- freezing doesn't affect brix and doesn't do anything cooking doesn't. Mrs. G uses the plums mostly for culinary purposes which is what you have to do with most plums from a mature tree anyway if you aren't giving them away. Unless you have the fruit appetite of a racoon.

Thanks all I picked all of the plums yesterday. I'll take a picture of a few that will go into a tart today.

Konrad: the orchard belongs to me. Planting, pruning, spraying, picking.

The plums are not overly ripe but full size and beautiful.. I think freezing them will be fine. (H-man, I trust you on this one).

Will take pics of interesting fruit I find. Thanks all!

I would think frozen and thawed plums wouldn't be good for much but jam.

Fine with me! Mrs. G

OK, I put a couple in the freezer, thawed them out. Very much softened but not really to the point of mushy. So I think you could do a lot of cooking with them.

I usually dry mine to prunes, and I don't know how it would work for that.

When weather permits, they will gradually turn into prunes here (getting sweeter and sweeter as they shrivel becoming a very interesting fruit in-between), but very little rain will make them rot. In CA tree dried prunes used to be a standard production method.

Of course, Stanley drops before it even gets to where I consider it ripe.

Some of mine were pruning on the tree this very strange year.

I have most in the dehydrator now. Never ever had a crop like this - no larvae, no rot. I attribute it to the use of chemicals.

She doesn't care for these right now,...must be eating the Mirabelle de Nancy over in France right now!