Damsons and plums are a most welcome sight Francine's home-made plum jam The English black bullace (available from Keeper's Nursery and the white bullace with in fact, yellowish fruit, and rare varieties like the 'Essex" and 'Royal" with larger sweeter fruits, are distinguished from their other close relatives by their rounder fruit and smoother stones. If you'd like to try a rare wild bullace liqueur, Colin and Phyllis Hingston, from Worcestershire, make one that can occasionally be bought online from demijohn.co.uk around the Christmas period, after a good harvest. The most welcomed fruit on my walk is the damson, also part of the insititia family. Originally from Damascus, and introduced by the Romans, their stones have been found in ancient digs. Strangely sweet and sharp at the same time, the fruits are oval. Many varieties are only distinguishable from their stones, but the most commonly grown varieties are the almost black-fruited 'Farleigh," originally found growing wild here in Kent; the almost plum-sized 'Merryweather" with large hyacinth-blue coloured damsons that are good to eat raw (from Blackmoor), and the 'Westmoreland," an ancient variety that has a website (Lyth Damsons), and a damson day in spring. Damsons are disease free and will grow in almost any soil, apart from pure peat or heavy clay. They don't thrive in shade, competition results in leggy trees. The best way to propagate them is by digging up and replanting suckers that will usually fruit in seven years. Mine (probably from a 'Merryweather" cross) are ready to eat now. Best picked with a willow fruit picker from crocus.co.uk, most go straight into the freezer for autumnal oatmeal, almond and brown sugar crumbles, but many get eaten straight away, and there's plenty of competition from birds, wasps and my hens, who sit and wait under the tree, as a diversion during their annual feather moult. When cooking damsons, the stones pop up to the surface and can be scooped out with a slotted spoon. Honey-flavoured with a touch of tartness and described by epicurean Edward Bunyon as containing "a flavour unequalled with sufficient juice for refreshment, but not for a bath," the shop-bought Greengage is often a woolly disappointment. Grow your own, full size and ready to fruit 'Reine-Claude Verte" from barcham.co.uk, or 'Cambridge Gage" and 'Coe's Golden Drop" on moderately vigorous St Julien rootstock from the organic nursery - walcotnursery.co.uk. Eat as many gages as you can, straight from the tree, and then, when stuffed, pick the rest to poach then freeze. Add lemon juice when jamming, and serve with toasted brioche dusted with cinnamon sugar, or add to Lesley Waters's knickerbocker glory recipe simmered in butter and cinnamon, served with vanilla ice cream and topped with toasted almonds and oats, and grated chocolate. Just what I need as a restorative after my early morning walk.