 A Fruitful Project
by Erica Stux
© 2007 Erica Stux
Shortly after we moved into our townhouse, my husband said “We need something else to grow on our patio. How about a fruit tree?”
“Sure, why not?” I replied.
So off he went to the neighborhood nursery. He came home with a small tree that he was told had been grafted so that it would bear three different kinds of fruit. We planted it in a bare spot of the flower bed, to join the rose bush and bird-of-paradise and various kinds of shrubbery already there.
A year later the tree produced some small green spheres. But we never found out what they were, because the squirrels got them all. We were all set to buy a plastic owl to scare the squirrels away, but by the time we were ready to drive to the store, the fruit was gone.
Several years passed. The tree grew taller, its branches sweeping against the upstairs windows. But the energy required for this growth must have prevented it from producing any kind of fruit. Then, one day this past spring, my husband called out excitedly “Come and look! Our fruit tree has some green spheres on its branches!”
Sure enough, it looked like we were finally about to get some fruit, although we didn’t know what.
As the weeks went by, the green spheres turned pinkish, grew larger, and their rosy color turned into a deep purple. Plums! We were about to get a crop of plums! One branch was so heavily laden that it dipped almost to the patio floor.
Soon the ripe ones began to drop off. Unfortunately, bouncing on the concrete floor made them split open. But I picked them up and washed them off thoroughly. I began eating plums as a regular part of my lunches. They had a delicious sweet flavor, though the peel was more tart.
 I picked the ripe ones that I could reach, which was very few. The others kept falling off with alarming regularity. I found myself checking the patio floor every two hours, and picking up the newly-fallen fruit. I began to sort them into piles: split ones in one pile, intact ones not quite ready to eat in another, soft intact ones in a third pile. They began to take over the interior of the refrigerator. The kitchen became a Mecca of fruit bowls and boxes. I started peeling the skin off the split ones, and putting bowls of naked plums in the freezer compartment. All this sorting and peeling took up a good part of my waking hours.
When my husband shouted, “Put down that plum and come to bed!” I finally realized the plums were taking over my life!
It felt as though the tree was making up for the years it had remained bare by birthing a bumper crop. We began giving bags and bags of them away. But the guilty tree kept producing more and more fruit! People began sending me recipes for plum jelly, plum pie, and pickled plums. But I only had time for simply washing, sorting, and peeling, and… eating! I knew I'd be racked with shame if I let a single plum go to waste. Even at the cost of my own waist measurements, I kept eating. Besides, they were tasty!
I ignored my husband's groans as I set another dish of plums on the dinner table. "No dessert until you've had at least three of these!" I announced, as I picked out four or so for myself - to follow the six I'd had for lunch and the two for a mid-afternoon snack. They were so tasty!
 I’ve now eaten so many plums; I’m amazed that my skin is still pink and not purple.
The one good side of this story aside from the lovely tasting treats is – my husband and I have never been so regular.
Funny – the other grafted branches of the tree never produced anything. Perhaps three or four years from now we’ll be inundated with another bumper crop. I only hope it won't turn out to be coconuts. |
