Harvesting mirabelle plums: when is the best time to harvest?

Mirabelle plums are one of the favorites among the plum subspecies and delight every year with their sweet, yellow fruits. It has been a popular plant for thousands of years, and during the harvest season it attracts crowds of people and animals who want to feast on the mirabelle plums. Do you have a mirabelle tree in your garden? Then you should definitely know when you can harvest the fruits that grow on the small trees.

Harvest time

When you can harvest the sweet yellow plums depends on a number of factors. Mirabelle plums in Germany have the best conditions for good growth and even part of the largest growing area for the fruits is in western Germany, bordering Lorraine in France. The general harvest time begins at the beginning of August and, if the conditions are favorable, extends to the end of September. Nevertheless, care and weather must be right, otherwise the time of harvest may be delayed or it may only be weak.

care

Care is crucial in order to be able to harvest the mirabelle plum early and with a high yield. The most important here is the Cut care, because mirabelle trees grow quickly and must be thinned out in good time, otherwise the crown will be too dense and the fruits will have problems reaching their normal size. In addition, the time of harvest can be delayed due to neglected pruning measures. Uncut wild forms of the mirabelle plum can usually be harvested later, around the second week of August.

weather

The weather is also important, as too cool, wet weather can severely affect the crop. Rain, in particular, while the fruits are ripening can lead to problems, as they then burst and the yield is reduced. Therefore, the weather should be considered in trees that are already bearing fruit. In addition, in rainy regions the plants usually take longer to bear fruit.

Location

When you can harvest also depends on the location of the plant. This does not directly mean the location in the garden, but the location of the Acreage. Prunus domestica subsp. syriaca in southwest and west Germany, especially on the Middle Rhine, the Palatinate areas and Main Franconia. But they also bear fruit quickly in Baden-Württemberg and Hesse, as long as it is warm enough. In the north and east, which are mostly dry or too rainy, and also cooler, they usually need two weeks longer.

sorts

In rare cases it can happen that you can harvest the mirabelle plums as early as the end of June, but this is more of an exception. That depends mainly on the variety. For example is the variety 'Miragrande' a late bloomer compared to the other varieties and can only be harvested in September. For this reason, mirabelle plum trees can be planted extremely well offset in order to increase the yield and the period of possible harvest. If you plant the right varieties, you will have ripe mirabelle plums that you can use from the end of June to the end of September, around 90 days.

Tip: If you find wild mirabelle plum trees, you can harvest them too. Compared to the refined variants that are often grown in gardens and orchards, the fruits are usually smaller, but no less sweet in taste.

Caution: risk of confusion

Please pay attention to the harvest time Mirabelle (bot. Prunus domestica subsp. syriaca) for possible confusion with the Cherry plum (bot. Prunus cerasifera). Both are plants that belong to the genus Prunus and therefore look extremely similar. Compared to Mirabelle plums, cherry plums can be harvested as early as the end of June, as they bear fruit very early and are in themselves one of the early fruit trees in the year. Their harvest time lasts until the beginning of August, depending on the variety.

The differences to the mirabelle plums are clear:

• Colors: mostly reddish, blue and yellow, with mirabelle plums only yellow with red dots or green
• Compared to mirabelle plums, the pulp is not easy to remove from the core
• mostly sour in taste, often bland and less sweet than mirabelle plums
• smoother skin

The size of the fruit is the same and since many people do not know that the yellow plum only ripens in a waxy yellow color, there is often confusion between the two. Since, as described above, you can only harvest the mirabelle plums from August and the period is correspondingly long, the risk of confusion is no longer so high.