Tag Archives: plums

It was enormous this year. With help, I’ve taken at least sixty pounds of it off the tree so far, and there are more left. These are just a few:

What does a person do with that many plums, anyway??? When I was growing up, our family made plum jam. Way too much work! Also, I like them raw, not cooked. Very best: sun-warmed and overripe. The only way to get that kind of plum is to have your own tree, or stay on good relations with a friend or neighbor who has a tree.

There’s a limit to how many fresh plums you can eat in a day and still crave them. I’ve gone over it. So . . . I’ve frozen some, made some into muffins, and given some away, to lots of different people. Some are going to a Food Security project, still in its infancy.  It’s an anti-capitalist effort.

Speaking of capitalism, and economics, what is the value of a fresh, ripe plum? The grocery store says it’s about $3.50 per pound, and since there are 12 of these plums in a pound, that would cost just about $0.30. In theory, if I wanted to sell all sixty pounds myself, I could get about $210. But that’s only if I could sell every last one, at that price. About half are bruised or have small bites, and we’re used to buying fruit that looks perfect. So it’s down to $105, barring clever marketing or packaging or whatnot.

Is that the only way to measure the value of a plum? What about its caloric value? About 30 calories. That would be 360 calories for a pound and 21,600 calories for the lot. Well, that’s interesting. Assuming that 2500 as an average daily caloric intake, those plums would feed a person for 8 days. (Do not try this at home, kids. Your colon can’t take it.) In a time of famine, this would be a windfall.

Or what about value in terms of time expended? Never mind the time it took to plant and water the tree, because it’s self-sufficient by now. But there’s pruning, keeping bindweed away, and hosing it down to prevent aphids. This year, an extra “climate change tax” of time because it rained ash, so I’m washing and drying the plums. Then of course, there’s the time it takes to pick the plums. Let’s estimate 30 hours annually. In that case, the plums are worth two pounds an hour.

In that case, one hour of labor gets me $7 worth of plums – not even minimum wage. Or, to see it another way, it gets me a third of my daily caloric intake. (Kids, again: Don’t eat all those plums in one sitting.)

These comparisons let me notice some things: first, we usually think of value in capitalism’s terms; and second, there are so many other ways to measure it.

What about the plums’ value to the tree? Clearly, since the tree just drops them on the ground, they’re worth nothing. On the other hand, if it wasn’t going to bear fruit, I wouldn’t have planted it in my back yard. So the tree owes everything to its plums.

How does the tree repay the favor? By sharing its plums. (Side note, it gives plums to the bees as well, which did the tree the favor of fertilizing the fruit in the first place, and which take bites of the fruit at harvest time.)

How do I repay the favor? Also by sharing the plums. And that brings me back to the food security project. It’s an anarchist thing. There is a hazy long-term goal of providing a sustainable source of food to a community, especially in case of economic collapse or whatnot. Will it succeed? Or will it go the way of many anarchist projects – abandoned in favor of something shinier? You can never tell.

All I know is that if people are truly interested in destroying capitalism, we have to build something else. And that “something else” depends on people not starving. It requires food to be produced, transported, distributed, and eaten. Somebody has to do that work. In any economic system.

In the meantime, twenty-some pounds of plums left my hands and went off to a meeting of anarchists, where they were shared and eaten and taken home. And valued.

Thanks, tree!

– Kristin