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There's some lovely red leaved trees at the bottom of the hill (picture of the tree in-situ via google streetview: http://tinyurl.com/3642v4x), very early to blossom and now covered in fruit. The fruit looks like a cherry. My contention is that this is a cherry plum tree and that I should pick and eat all the fruit as soon as possible. Any thoughts?

Yup, looks just like mine. Go for it.

Zoe

I think of that as an ornamental Prunus (everybody in France has one in their garden ) and didn't know it was edible.

I have to say that I didn't know the ornamental even produced plums, so never even considered whether they are edible or not.
I would be interested in what they taste like.
Also, I would be very interested if red leafed plums suffer from silverleaf, and how would you know if it did ?

We have one of those trees, and the fruit is definitely edible. However ...

When it ripens, it's a desperate race between me and the wasps. If I get there first, the flesh is quite thin, with a large stone - but it's VERY sweet. I know you'll find this hard to believe, but I make wine from them.

Mike

They are edible but the biggest problem is spotting the fruit amongst all those leaves. They are exactly the same colour. I didn't realise that mine fruited for years, until I noticed the birds eating some fruit. Even now, I can only find a few fruits on the lowest branches. No chance of spotting the ones higher up.

It's one of the first of the plum trees to ripen so it's worth keeping an eye out for.

Zoe

Mine is growing very slowly so I might be waiting 10 years or so for fruit I actually went and bought one because this is the first house I've lived in for quite a while which didn't have one of those trees, and for their early pink blossom and purple leaves they are really worth it even if the tree shape itself tends to be on the straggly unkempt side.

Next question then - does anyone have a good cherry plum jam recipe?

..just use any plum jam recipe you like.
We have both red and yellow (Mirabelle) locally. They make lovely dry wine, but even better is to make cherry plum brandy or white rum ( like making sloe gin) and then use the soaked fruit to make truffles.
I suppose you could try gin we don't 'cos because gin makes me depressed!

Have loads of cherry plums near me,made a few kgs of jam out of them last year and will be doing the same this year...
Jam was easy to make,just boil all the plums whole(seeds and skins) sieve it when it's gone to mush(found a potato masher helped)


put the sieved puree back into a pan add sugar to taste and boil the a**e off it till it does the plate test..

i know it's not traditional method but it worked for me and was so easy..

cheers