Plums

The plum is a stone fruit, which grows on plum trees that may grow very tall, with a height of three up to even seven metres. The oval fruit has a stone in its centre. When the fruit is ripe, it will be juicy and sweet. Its colour may be bluish black, red or yellow.

Plum cultivation

A plum should be left to ripen on the tree. The trick is to know exactly when the right moment has come to pick it. Correct picking will ensure delicious plums with an improved shelf life. In the Netherlands, the Betuwe and West-Friesland are the main plum-growing regions. There are different plum varieties, each with their own picking moment. This allows consecutive harvesting. The best known types are the Opal and the Monsieur Hatif wine plum. Both varieties have a delicious, fresh sweet flavour. Other examples are Avelon, Jubileum, Reine Victoria, Blue Free, Reine Claude Verte, and Anna Spaht.

Availability plums

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Stone fruit

Cherry

Like plums, cherries are referred to as stonefruit because they contain a stone-like pit. There are several different cherry varieties; some are sweet while others are fairly tart.

Nectarine

The nectarine is a mutant of the peach and also a stone fruit, which refers to fruit with skin, flesh and a hard stone at the centre. The nectarine differs from the peach thanks to its skin, which is smooth, rather than velvety.

Peach

Peaches are stone fruits. They generally have a soft, velvety skin, hiding the tasty flesh and a hard stone in the centre.