The fruit of sand plums, also known as Chickasaw plum, makes a delicious tart jam, similar to Scandinavian lingonberry jam. Sand plums were cultivated by Native Americans before the arrival of the Europeans. The plums are ripe and ready for picking from mid-to-late July.
Sand plums grow in thickets of shrubby, short trees. The branches have sharp thorns. The bushes are covered in white flowers in late March/early April, shortly after wild Bradford pears (Callery pears) have finished blooming. A good time to find the bushes is when they are blooming in early spring while other plants are still dormant. The plums are half to three-fourths of an inch in diameter and are shiny red, orange or yellow. It looks like this will be a good year for plums. The bushes are full of fruit.
If you want to try your hand at making sand plum jam, check out our recipe!
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