Bottling Plums

This was a bumper year for our plum tree. The summer was warm with very little rain so I guess that was the reason for such a good crop. Check out the following photos.

Last year we picked a couple of dozen but this year there were a few hundred plums on the tree.

We decided to use some for jam and bottle the rest. The children and their friends as well as some of us adults ate a number of them. They were delicious.

For bottling the plums we used three cups of water to one cup of sugar. We doubled the recipe  as were going to bottle most of the fruit. The mixture was brought to a boil and left to simmer for five minutes. We put the plums into the pot and began bottling them when the skin started to crack.  Each 500ml jar took 10 to 12 plums.

Thus far we have 24 bottles and we still have about the same amount left to bottle.

We also bottled some pickles today. A busy morning in the kitchen. My wife did the pickles, although I did help with the peeling, slicing and dicing.