A Bumper Year for Damsons
Due to the cold winter and mild spring, we have just harvested a bumper crop of damsons. Our small tree (prunus domestica subsp. insititia) has provided us with many pounds of this wonderful oval dark blue/purple, very tart fruit with its yellow flesh. In April the tree was covered in delicate white blossom and by the end of last month, the fruit was ripe and ready for picking.
The Daily Telegraph recently reported a warning from fruit famers that ‘Damson jam could become a thing of the past, because of a lack of demand for the traditional fruit’. Old damson trees are not being replaced at the end of their life (usually damson trees bear fruit for around 30 years) because demand for the fruit has fallen and as a consequence damson orchards around the country are disappearing. Today damsons are a rare sight in supermarkets and few preserve manufacturers now produce damson jam purely it seems because it is unfashionable, not because it is any more difficult or expensive to make than other jams or preserves. Indeed in 2007 Boris Johnson reported on his successful homemade damson jam when commenting on the EU’s 2001 directive on jams, jellies, marmalades and sweetened chestnut purees which sets standards on the composition and labelling of the products covered by the directive.
I have made several pounds of damson jam in the last few days and have placed many more pounds of damsons in the freezer for use at a later date. I intend to give Delia’s Spiced Damson Chutney a go and will try making Damson Gin after the success of our Sloe Gin a couple of years ago. I hope our damson tree keeps producing fruit for many years to come.