We have sloe!

Was gonna mention this last Thursday, when I first discovered the ripe little plums falling to the ground in the garden, but never got around to it. But the sisters and I just made the first morning inspection of the garden (me for sloe, them for cats that bed down and hide in that jungle we used to call a garden), and found four more sloe to eat.

Mmmm.

Had my first sloe while bicycling in college. Just a few miles south of here. Happened across a few bushes that were growing on the banks of a huge irrigation ditch, right next to the highway (tried to see if they were still there last week, but wife whizzed by too fast). But just the perfect fruit to find on a bike ride.

Near as I can tell, don't have any growing wild in my part of the world. But boss has a tree in his yard, since they are a much lower elevation, and brought a whole grocery bag up one year when he was helping on me on my deer check station.

Managed to eat half the bag there on station, kind of forgetting the wife's desire to make some jellies and syrups.

Excellent pancake syrup, especially mixed with chokecherries. Ohhh, we ate good when the wife wasn't working.

So when she was through, I took the hundreds of pits outside, spaded a small hole, and dumped them in.

They grew, naturally. Want things to grow in your garden? Abuse 'em a little bit. Life likes to be challenged.

Quite surprised when dozens of the plants came up in a clump. Transplanted a half dozen or so to the back fence, where most have survived (although not thrived). And now some of the little trees in the clump are taller than my head.

And bearing fruit.

Only a few bloomed and bore. But I was surprised to see them bloom at all. I mean, I've had raspberry bushes that were bigger.

One little tree has one plum (the one the deer munched down). That's it.

Only one 1-meter tree along the fence produced, maybe a dozen fruits, and they are no where near ripe yet.

One in the clump is heavily burdened with unripe green plums, looking like grape clusters. Another with branches intertwined has a handful, that are getting red.

But one little tree, again less than a meter tall, has had a couple dozen sloe, and they are coming ripe. With my first harvest last week. Now, I could pick them, but I prefer to let the tree tell me when they are ready. And I sneak out every morning for my handful of sloe.

Trick to these things is to pop them open in your mouth, suck out the sweet nectar, and then spit them out. You don't want to try to crush the skin in your mouth, because that part can be kind of bitter.

Mmmmm.