I’ve quickly moved through the 5 stages of grief since finding that my precious plums were playing host to some very rude and uninvited worms. A few people advised me to just cut out the bad parts of the fruit and use what was good. That is what I decided to do. I had a good deal of satisfaction washing those worms down the drain, ending their happy future as plum-egg-layers. I felt good that I was able to still use the fruit, rather than just throwing it all away like I was intending to do last night. I learned a few things while cutting up the fruit: 1) it is actually easier to pit a plum with a worm living in it. 2) birds can eat a worm out of a plum through a single tiny hole. 3) cutting up a bunch of plums is time-consuming work.
After I got all the fruit cut up, I only had 2 cups of fruit, far from the 6 cups the recipe called for. After some advance math, I figured out how much sugar I needed. The process of making jam is super easy. You just heat it up, stir in the pectin, stir in the sugar, and keep stirring. The only hard part is getting the water, jars, lids, and fruit all hot at the same time. This is one time a big stove would be handy. I came out with 4 half-pint jars of jam. The taste taste results were outstanding, but I don’t know how you can go wrong with anything with that much sugar! I’ll be able to use less sugar once I get a pressure-cooker though.
good job, Brian.
Awesome. my first caning experience was green beans back when I had a big garden at my old house. Now the next chore is keeping the worms out of the plums to begin with. I say chemicals are your friend, just make sure you wash them before using. Or you can just cut the worms out every year, Its your choice.