Picking plums from my plum tree, sowing seeds late and how luck plays a part when growing your own food

I have been picking the plums from my plum tree on my allotment, and it makes me happy to say that as it is the tree that everyone said was dead.  Well it may be an old plum tree and not in the best of health but I have had a crop of Victoria plums that weighs in at ten pounds. Not bad for an old girl, the tree I mean.   My  next job is to cut away any dead wood that I can that will not effect next years growth and potential crop.

Had I listened to the advice given, the tree would have been reduced to fire wood yeas ago along with the digging out of four trees that I was told where a waste of space and have turned out to be fruit trees too.

I believe gardening advice when growing fruit and vegetables comes in two types - very useful and helpful and the other form is doom and gloom and reasons not to do things.

The first type I soak up like a sponge, the second type I evaluate and then make my own decisions on.

Day to day I live by the rules, but sometimes something like an empty space on the vegetable plot and a  half packet of unused  seeds will make me have a go at sowing them a month after the date on the packet says you can. Do I get results? Well it is planted with a win some lose some attitude and sometimes the results are pleasantly surprising, I think like all vegetable growing the need for luck and the right weather conditions play an important part.